Does Slightly Mean Somewhat? Measuring Vague Intensity Words in LLM Numeric Actions

In three linesStudy across 6,620 runs showing Claude Haiku compresses 10 English intensity modifiers into 5 distinct outputs. System state context dominates lexical effect (explained variance: 0.782 vs 0.079). Near operational boundaries, model exhibits three modes: small adjustments for weak words, abstention for strong words, ceiling-pushing for 'drastically'.

Summary generated by Claude — human-verified