Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: Wenedyk - Adjectives

From:Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
Date:Monday, September 16, 2002, 14:21
En réponse à Padraic Brown <elemtilas@...>:

> --- Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren_jan@...> > wrote: > > > Adjectives must agree in number, case, and gender > > with the nouns they modify. > > Here Kerno is probably about the most divergent of > Romance languages; because adjectives have been > totally reduced to one form in the spoken language > (like English adjectives) so you can't even have them > agree for gender or number. In writing, it is possible > to distinguish singular and plural only. Technically, > they _should_ agree for gender, number and case on > account of the mutations that should be there; but > anymore, you find that mutations are not used in > adjectives. >
In Reman, adjectives have become invariable too, and in this case they are invariable even in writing :) . Actually, Reman went so far that ajectives can be used as adverbs without change, like in German or Dutch ;))) .
> > They can be placed both before and after it. > > Same, except that adjectives placed before are > considered emphatic. >
Reman doesn't make such distinctions, but that's because adjectives mandatorily follow a noun preceeded with the article. For a noun without article (which can happen since Reman doesn't have an indefinite article, there again an oddity among Romance languages :)) ), the adjective can be put in front or after the noun without change in meaning, but short adjectives tend to take the front position, while longer adjectives tend to follow the noun, especially when the noun itself is short.
> > Kerno can add -oer and -am to form comparative and > superlative; or it can have plu (more) and il plu (the > more) before the adjective: > > duls dulsoer il dulsam > duls plu duls il plu duls > sweet sweeter sweetest > > A few truly irregular adjectives exist, like boun > (good) and mais (more): > > boun meior il matham > mal peior il pessam > magnós maior il maxam > -- mais il maxam >
In Reman comparatives and superlatives are normally formed with |plu|: more and |pluri|: the most (which are themselves ajectives/adverbs, and thus can be used with nouns too), except for three of them which have irregular forms: ben: good, nice mhor: better, nicer otim: the best, the nicest mal: bad, evil phor: worse, more evil pesim: the worst, the most evil gran: big, tall mahr: bigger, taller masim: the biggest, the tallest Note that in the Reman orthography |h| stands for /j/. Christophe. http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.