Re: Comparison of adjectives (was Re: Reviving an old tradition)

=?ISO-8859-1?Q?John_Quijada?= <jq_ithkuil@...> wrote:
> In designing the revision to Ithkuil (called Ilaksh), I have expanded the
> morphology of comaratives significantly, based on my discovery of how
> complicated and semantically ambiguous comparatives really are in natural
> languages, as illustrated in an ambiguous sentence like "She is
> healthier."
>    Consider how many meanings this can have:
>
> She is healthier [than she was previously, but she is still ill.]
>
> She is healthier [then anyone else here]
>
> She is healthier [and so is now healthy whereas previously she was not]
>
> She is healthier [she was healthy before and is now even more so]
>
> [more examples]
>
> There is ... a semantic division between absolute value of a quality
> (i.e., the statement is true regardless of one’s knowledge or contextal
> point of view) versus relative value of a quality (i.e., the truthfulness
> of the statement depends on the context or point of view:
    One thing which stood out to me in these examples and the other examples
you gave is a difference between comparisons of something with something
else and comparisons of something with itself at different times.  In fact,
I might just grammaticalize that in Seezzitonian.

 ===========================================================================

                 Dennis Paul Himes    <>    himes@cshore.com
                   http://home.cshore.com/himes/dennis.htm
        Gladilatian page: http://home.cshore.com/himes/glad/lang.htm
       Seezzitonian page: http://home.cshore.com/himes/umuto/lang.htm

Disclaimer: "True, I talk of dreams; which are the children of an idle
brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy; which is as thin of substance as
the air."                      - Romeo & Juliet, Act I Scene iv Verse 96-99

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