Re: question about the degrees of the adjective

>        Comparison can be intensification, if I decide so. After all, Latin
>didn't make any difference between relative superlative (the biggest of)
>and absolute superlative (very big). The first is comparison, the second
>intensification. My idea is just to add more meanings to the same form
>(I don't care about confusion, in many languages confusions like that
>exist in one field or another and nobody cares. My language is a
>personal one, not a philisophical one).

Jim wrote:    Yes, I see what you mean.   Looks like that part of my
critique wasn't thought out.

>I'm going to try and explain you the meaning of the absolute, as I see
>it (didn't you see my other post with the lines explaining the semantic
>meaning of the intensive and absolute? I think it would have made it
>clearer). Let's imagine a couple of friends talking about others people
>and their height (uninteresting conversation, but sometimes it happens
>:) ). One of them is 1m65 (sorry for the Americans, but I can't use feet
>to measure anything),
No problem;   we get meters in our science fiction books, some high school
science classes, and some track-and-field events.

>The other is 1m80. The first one says "Peter is
>tall (positive)", but the second one replies "Well, he is simply-tall
>(absolute)" because in fact he is only 1m85 and that's not far from him.
>Of course, the second one would explain then what he thinks, unless he
>has already explained what he considers "tall". The idea behind this is
>that the second person (the 1m80 tall one) considers himself tall, but
>that's all (he is not a giant), so people near him in height are for him
>"just tall (absolute)" whereas he considers persons tall (positive) more
>for people between 1m80 and 2m00.

Jim wrote:   I think Ed Heil's remarks about an "implicit standard" are
useful here.

>As you see, the absolute narrows the meaning of the adjective,
>depending on the reference chosen (which is needed, like for a
>comparative, or even a relative superlative).
>        Well, I don't know if I'm very clear, but it's something I
understand
>well even if I can't explain it well.
Your understanding will enable you to generate examples that will clarify
your meaning once you get the conlang fleshed out some more.

Jim