Towards a corpus-based combinatory dictionary of English predicate-intensifier collocations

The author presents a model for investigating the collocational behaviour of English upgrading intensifiers - both central items like very, which expresses degree, and less prototypical, polyfunctional items like bloody, dramatically or doggedly. Her aim is to build a sample entry for an electronic combinatory dictionary of English and Italian intensifiers aimed at the advanced language learner, the translator, and the linguist.