About very

There is a peculiar class of degree modifiers, represented by very in English, that can occur in definite descriptions with no apparent gradable property, such as the very man we saw yesterday. These modifiers are commonly assumed to have the same mechanism of modification as regular degree modifiers, like really and extremely. This paper argues that this assumption is fallacious. Modification by very and its kin involves a special mechanism that crucially relies on the availability of a context shift of a particular kind. This special mechanism explains the appearance of very in definite descriptions with no gradable properties and also accounts for a number of additional facts about the distribution of very.