Re: Degrees of comparation

Sally Caves wrote:
[interesting Teonaht stuff snipped]
>Tairezazh, what a lovely name!  Sounds like something the
>Teonim would exclaim over for beauty.
Those Teonim seems to've got good taste! :-)

BTW, what does {ht} in "Teonaht" signify? [xt]?
>
> > tshedair    most beautiful
> > dadair      more beautiful
> > dair        beautiful
> > medair      less beautiful
> > sizdair     least beautiful
> >
> > (All to be stressed on the _ai_)
> >
> > Are there any natlangs with a similar system?
>
>You've made them prefixes, which is nice.  Spanish
>and French express these distinctions, as does Teonaht,
>in adverbs that precede the adjective:  hermosa, mas
>hermosa, menos hermosa,  la menos hermosa, etc.   I
>suppose they could easily become prefixual in Teonaht.
>English can suffix them:  "prettier, prettiest"--which seems
>typical of Germanic languages--as well as revert to the
>adverb:  more beautiful, most beautiful, a legacy, perhaps,
>from its exposure to French.
These prefices are actually descended from originally independent adverbs,
so if the Teonim did that they'd exactly mimic the Tairezazh development.

                                            Andreas


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