Re: An Idea (Hopefully Non-offensive), Comparison Terminology

> ObConlang:
> (Since we're talking about least badness) My conlang Nrit has a nice variety
> of degrees of comparison (Though I'm considering redoing it; I'm angry at it
> right now.  How does comparison work in everyone else's conlangs?): (These
> are all in Nrit's nominative case; I really don't want to write out the long
> inflection charts.)
> Positive : dâra : green
> Negative : dârriha : not green (suffixes -Ciha to the root after dropping
> any final vowel, where C is the final consonant.)
> Comparative : dâratka : greener (-(a)tka)
> Superlative : dâraminna : greenest (-(V)minna, where V is the last root
> vowel stripped of long length or nasality if there is no final vowel.)
> Reductive : dâratqâ : less green (-atqâ, from -atka+-ha.  <q> is aspirated
> /k/.  Circumflexes mark long vowels.)
> Attenuative : dâramnâ : least green (-(V)mnâ, from -(V)minna+ha.)
>
> The negative has its own declension pattern (originally all the negatives
> did, but the reductive and attenuative were analogized to normal adjectives)
> while the rest behave like normal (positive) adjectives.
> ---
> Shreyas
>
There was a discussion about this on the list not too long ago, which
inspired me to amend Gevey's adjective degree system:

Gevey requires all adjectives to be attached to an object, an
adjective can never stand alone. This led to the development of
"adjective anchors" which can be used with adjectives when there are
no objects available for the adjective to attach to. This further
developed into using different anchors to represent different
adjective degrees - of which (at the moment) Gevey has 8:

positive (zhi'jarhe - large)
equative (zhoudi'jarhe - as large)
comparative (zhani'jarhe - larger)
superlative (zhasti'jarhe - largest)
hyperlative (zhaevdi'jarhe - largest of all)
diminutive (zhambi'jarhe - not large enough)
selective (zharhi'jarhe - just large enough)
excessive (zhoili'jarhe - too large)

The zh- anchor tends to take the direct object slot, with the
main object being compared becoming the subject and any other object
used for comparison tending to be expressed as an indirect object.
Thus:

Tuusrhe telaan strime zhani-vite ba'tuusrhes tuzaan
   tuusrhe telaan - this dog (subject)
   strime - runs (verb)
   zhani-vite - faster than (direct object)
   ba'tuusrhes tuzaan - that dog (indirect object)
     This dog runs faster than that dog

It seems to be working, so I probably won't change the system this
month...

Rik

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