Re: Wenedyk - Adjectives

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.

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