Re: I came in late.

Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
> I've been looking around for information, but I couldn't find anything
> directly relating to this. Somewhere in the attics of my mind hovers a
> quote about some C19 Englishman who dismissed 'primitive' languages for
> not having comparatives, but that's all.
Well, I suspect that those "primitive" languages simply didn't have a
morphological comparative.  I've read that, for instance, Quechua uses a
verb meaning something like "to surpass" to indicate comparative.  I
don't know how it's used, my source didn't explain it.  I think it's
something like "he is old surpassing me" for "He is older than me".  I
don't see how a language could have NO way of indicating more and less
of a quality.

--
"[H]e axed after eggys: And the goode wyf answerde, that she coude not
speke no Frenshe ... And then at last a nother sayd that he woulde haue
hadde eyren: then the goode wyf sayd that she vnderstood hym wel." --
William Caxton
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