Re: question about the degrees of the adjective

I realise now that I was even less clear than I thought. Just to give a
quick idea of the original meanings of the "intensive" and the
"absolutive", here is an example:

- positive:     big
- intensive:    huge
- absolutive:   big (not huge, but not small either)

        I know the difference between the absolutive and the positive is very
unclear, but there is one (at least in my mind). I think that the
absolutive is more restrictive than the positive. To give you an idea,
modelling the semantic area of "big" by a segment on a line, we've got:

- positive:

___________|-------------------|__________________________________________

- intensive:

__________________________________________________|-------------------|___

- absolutive:

_________________|-------|________________________________________________

The ideas of comparative, superlative and comparative of equality are
just derived from those original meanings. I hope that I was clearer
now.

--
        Christophe Grandsire

        Philips Research Laboratories --  Building WB 145
        Prof. Holstlaan 4
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        The Netherlands

        Phone:  +31-40-27-45006
        E-mail: grandsir@natlab.research.philips.com