Tracing thick and thin concepts through corpora

Abstract Philosophers and linguists currently lack the means to reliably identify evaluative concepts measure their intensity. Using a corpus-based approach, we present new method distinguish evaluatively thick thin adjectives like ‘courageous’ ‘awful’ from descriptive ‘narrow,’ value-associated ‘sunny.’ Our study suggests that modifiers ‘truly’ ‘really’ frequently highlight dimension of adjectives, allowing for them be uniquely classified. Based on these results, believe our operationalization may pave way more quantitative approach concepts.