The interaction of event structure and scalar structure has provided accoun
ts for various phenomena revolving around verbs and degree modification. Th
is paper demonstrates that such an interaction is indeed relevant in explai
ning the pattern of modification that the adverb totemo 'very' exhibits in
Japanese. In particular, I will argue that the distinction between a 'trivi
al standard' and a 'nontrivial standard' discussed in the analysis of dever
bal adjectives by Kennedy and McNally (1999) plays an important role in det
ermining the range of verbs that accept degree modification by totemo, (C)
2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.