Adverbial means of expressing approximation in Swedish quantitative constructions

The article is devoted to the analysis of a number of adverbs that can enter quantitative constructions with the meaning of approximate quantity (hereinafter referred to as CAQ) as approximators: drygt, maximalt, nära, närmare, nästan, ungefär, åtminstone. The semantic features of the selected adverbial approximators are described on the material of the Swedish language. The adverbial approximators are categorised into groups depending on the type of quantitative value of the construction with a certain approximator: less than the reference point (with the approximators nära, närmare, nästan); less than or equal to the reference point (with the approximator maximalt); less than, equal to or greater than the reference point (with the approximator ungefär); greater than or equal to the reference point (with the approximator åtminstone); greater than the reference point (with the approximator drygt). As the analysis of the quantitative component has shown, some adverbial approximators (ungefär, nästan) have a wider syntactic combinability than other selected approximators. The frequency of use of the selected adverbs in CAQ is determined: adverbial approximators drygt, nästan, ungefär are more frequent than other studied approximators. According to the study, most of the above-mentioned adverbs also occur outside of quantitative constructions (except for the adverb drygt, which occurs only in CAQ); some adverbs occur mostly in CAQ (maximalt, ungefär); outside of CAQ (nära, närmare, nästan, åtminstone).