Except for adjectival degree modifiers used to modify (pseudo-)participles and deverbal adjectives like those given in (106), which will be discussed in more detail in Section 31.5, there are very few adjectival downtoners; cf. Section 25.1.2, sub II.

This section will therefore mainly deal with adjectives like waanzinnig and ernstig in (107), which act as amplifiers. Section 25.1.2, sub I, has shown that adjectival amplifiers fall into two different classes. First, adjectival amplifiers of the type waanzinnig in (107a) have an amplifying effect only in that the original meaning of the adjective “insane” has disappeared: (107a) simply expresses that the book is very good. Adjectival amplifiers like ernstig in (107b), on the other hand, have more or less retained their original meaning (here: “serious”): (107b) expresses not only that Jan is very ill, but also that the illness is serious. In other words, an adjectival adverb can occasionally act as a second-order predicate, denoting a property not predicated of entities, but of the properties of entities (such as those denoted by set-denoting adjectives).

In view of the above, it is not surprising that in (108) we also encounter adjectival adverbs like lekkerappetizingly, aandoenlijkmovingly and mooibeautifully whose primary semantic contribution is not degree modification but second-order predication. See Section 28.5.3 for a discussion of predicatively used adjectives that seem to have a similar second-order property.

Finally, note that evaluative adjectives like verdomddamned, dekselsconfounded, verrektdamned can also be used adverbially, in which case they generally have an amplifying effect. See Section 25.1.2, sub IB, for a more detailed discussion.