Re: Equatives?

On Tuesday 11 March 2003 10:58 am, Andreas Johansson wrote:
> Quoting michael poxon <m.poxon@...>:
>
> > Omeina has many degrees of comparison of adjectives, including:-
> > 1) -tu (translating "fairly, quite...")
> > 2) -dua (translating "...enough for/to...")
> > 3) -ande ("very...")
> > 4) -alden ("too... to/for")
> > For example: Engu dunalden ondinalde na = A horse is too heavy to
pick
> > up
> > (lit. Horse / heavy-too / for the raising / is
>
> Tairezazh sports negative degrees of comparation; _taiks_ "big" yields
> _metaiks_ "less big" and _sistaiks_ "least big" alongside _dataiks_
"bigger"
> and _tshetaiks_ "biggest".
>
> BTW, anyone know of an ALF justification for this one? It's hardly
that wild,
> but I don't think I've seen it in a natlang.
>
>                                             Andreas
>
>
Jouevyaix adjectives are verbs: "is-blue", "is-brave", etc. Most, more,
less, least tend to be treated as quantifiers, which go before the
thing quantified, while things like "very" tend to go in the modifier
slot, which follows the thing modified.

Negative affixes can go almost anywhere, giving a very fine
differentiation of what's being negated:

onn     is-blue
onn wul is-blue is-complete completely blue
se-onn  without-is-blue (without blueness)
onn-se  is not blue
ve onn  most blue
ve onn-se the most non-blue
vese onn not the most blue
onn wul-se not completely blue
onn-se wul completely not blue
etc.

There's a standalone negative particle 'sa' that negates the nominal
phrase or clause that follows it. (Adding a -se affix within the clause
provides emphasis.)

There's also a particle 'ta' that establishes an environment of
comparison or equivalence: the two things that follow it are being
asserted to be equivalent unless one is marked with a comparative
quantifier. This is one way of handling predicate nouns (besides
adjectivalizing them). (There's a verb that means "to exist", but no
actual "to be" in the "X is Y" sense.) The 'ta' particle is related to
the "-t@" affix, which is a nominalizer and collectivizer.

--
Elyse Grasso