Re: question about the degrees of the adjective

RE:   COMPARISON

a)    You could have relatively straightforward semantics and funny syntax.
Imagine A-D as endings for adjectives that take complements.

A           (equative)

box    big-A    house = a box as big as a house

B            ("over")

box   big-B    house = a box bigger than a house

C            ("under")

box big C-house = a box not as big as the house

D            (super)

box big D-box = the biggest box

(zero)    positive

box big  = a big box

E            absolute

(obligatory on adjectives like 'unique' that aren't compared)

opportunity unique-E = a unique opportunity



b)    Here's some comments:

>My idea is to add to the "positive" form (the adjective itself) an
>"intensive" and an "absolutive" (nothing to do with the case).
On a list full of people all but obsessed with ergative/absolutive case
systems, you may want to use "absolute" instead of "absolutive" for that
form of the adjective.

>The
>intensive serves to give more "intensity" to the meaning of the
>adjective. For example, with the adjective "big", the intensive can
>mean: very big, really big, huge, bigger, biggest, but the comparative
>and superlative meanings (stretched into one form) are only consequences
>and not basis of the real meaning of the intensive.
>On the other hand,
>the absolutive serves also to give more "intensity" to the meaning of
>the adjective, not in the sense of being more "important", but in the
>sense of being "just that" and nothing else. SO the absolutive of "big"
>can mean: big enough, simply big, not more than big, not huge (but not
>small either), as big as (more exactly "at most as big as").

Doesn't this assume that big-ness is absolute and not relative?

>You see, I want a system that is different from everything I know
>(still in my idea of a "disturbing" language). But I still would like to
>know if anyone knows a language that would use a system like mine, or at
>least another system than the simple positive-comparative-superlative
>one (I don't mean the case where comparative and superlative have the
>same form, like in French, because it is just the same system with some
>syntactical confusion). Thank you in advance.

First of all, intensification isn't comparison, although you could include
both comparative and intensifying affixes in your list of inflections for
adjectives.

Second, I see what you're trying to do with "absolute," namely add another
degree of comparison and so change the same-old same-old comparison system.
But the meaning is unclear with relative adjectives like 'big,' 'hot,'
'slow,' etc.

What does "simply big" mean?    And do you want one term that means both
"big enough" and "as big as?"

Jim















>        Christophe Grandsire
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