The which is most and right harde to answere: Intensifying right and most in earlier English

This paper studies the intensifying use of most, comparing it to the behaviour ofright, one of the most common Middle English intensifiers. Using evidence from the Helsinki Corpus, this investigation shows that both items modify the same type of adjectival heads, namely bounded subjective positive adjectives, which suggests that they are not prototypical boosters, but come close to maximisers. While most is first found in typically comparative structures, later extending to intensifying contexts, right first occurs in intensifying environments, but can spread to superlative structures due to its original bounded nature. Most succeeds right on the temporal axis, and while it is equivalent to right in some environments, evidence from honorifics suggests that it usually indicates an even higher degree of intensification.