The adjective. Types of adj. Degrees of comparison

The adverbial of degree


§ 110. This adverbial modifies various parts of the sentence expressed by verbs, adjectives, adverbs and statives, characterizing actions, states and quality from the viewpoint of their intensity. The identifying questions being how much? to what extent?
Adverbials of degree are expressed mainly by adverbs and by preposi­tional phrases with the preposition to.

The story is extremely long.

All was planned to the split second.
Now you may read to your hearts content.

Sometimes nouns can be modified by an adverbial of degree, as in:

You are quite a man, my boy.

The adverbial of measure


§ 111. This adverbial is expressed by a noun denoting a unit of measure (length, time, weight, money, temperature).
It is used after statal verbs denoting processes, states, or characteristics allowing measurement, such as to measure, to last, to wait, to sleep, to walk, to run, to weigh, to cost. Nouns as adverbials of measure are preceded by numerals or the indefinite article in its, numerical function.

The room measures 30 feet across.

We walked (for) five miles.
The box weighs a ton.
The temperature went down ten degrees below zero.


The adverbial of exception


§ 112. This adverbial is expressed by nouns or prepositional phrases introduced by the prepositions but, except, save, but for, except for, save for, apart from, aside from, with the exclusion of.

I looked everywhere except in the bedroom.

Your English is decent apart from spelling.
The road was empty except for a few cars.

The prepositions save and save for are more formal and occur in writing, as in:

These men were in fact quite civil save during certain weeks of autumn and winter.