Tatari Faran comparatives

And now, for a Tatari Faran update. (These haven't been forthcoming for
a while, but the upcoming Inverse Relay---and my putting myself on the
line by offering TF as one of the participants---has finally prodded me
to work out more details of TF. So here they are, Tatari Faran
comparatives.)

Tatari Faran, in accordance with its isolating tendencies, does not have
any inflected forms for comparatives. Instead, it uses the words _puru_
and _sutu_, meaning "more" and "less", respectively. This may sound
rather simple, but it does have some interesting interactions with TF's
grammar:

1) _puru_ and _sutu_ may appear in adjectival position to indicate a
comparative quantity:

	tiki   puru sei tsuni baran   kana upi  ipai ira.
	rabbit more CVY find  morning now  here at   COMPL
	There are more rabbits here this morning.
	['ti'ki pu4u sej . 'tsuni ba4an kana ?u'pi ?ipaj ?i4a]

	buneis   sutu sei tsuni upi  ipai ira.
	mushroom less CVY find  here at   COMPL
	There are less mushrooms here (than before).
	[bu'nejs:utu sej . tsuni ?u'pi ?ipaj ?i4a]

(Note: the [.] in the IPA indicates a brief pause, characteristically
between the subject NP and the predicate.)

2) They may also modify adjectives to indicate more or less of the
corresponding quality:

	san    busan puru sa  hena saba anan.
	person fat   more CVY then rise COMPL
	Then a fatter person stood up.
	[san bu'san pu4u sa hEna . 'saba ?anan]

	san    busan sutu sa  bumei utu'.
	person fat   less CVY sit   COMPL
	The less fat person sat down.
	[san bu'san sutu sa . 'bumej ?utu?]

No surprises so far. Now, what about explicit comparisons? So far, the
standard of comparison has been implicit. For explicit comparison, we
add an NP in originative or receptive case:

3)	bunari tara'    sei jui'in    puru diru minei        kakat.
	woman  that:DEM CVY beautiful more girl this:DEM:RCP COMPL
	That woman is more beautiful than this girl.
	[buna'4i ta4a? sej . jui'?in pu4u 'di4u minej kakat]

Notice that the receptive case is used for the standard of comparison
here.

4)	asuen           sa  meman  sutu teira         kei beiparan.
	younger_brother CVY mature less older_brother ORG NEG:COMPL
	The younger brother is less mature than the older brother.
	[?a'sMn sa . 'mEman sutu "tej4a kej 'bejpa4an]

Here, "older brother" is in the *originative* case, and the complement
_paran_ is negated. In general, when the comparison is positive, the
standard of comparison is receptive, and when the comparison is
negative, the standard is originative and the complement gets negated.

Now, we come to an interesting particle, _ke_, which has no direct
translation in English. It is used when _puru_ or _sutu_ is used without
reference to a quality or quantity:

	puru ke!
	More, more!
	['pu4u kE]

	sutu ke!
	Less, less!
	['sutu kE]

This particle contracts with the adverb _umai_ ("again", "turning back")
to form a progressive comparative marker _kumai_, indicating an
increasing or decreasing quality:

5)	tara' sei pamra tsat puru kumai asu.
	3sp   CVY run   fast more PROGR COMPL
	She runs faster and faster.
	['ta4a? sej . 'pam4a tsat pu4u kumaj ?asu]

6)	tara' sa  pamra tsat sutu kumai bei'asu.
	3sp   CVY run   fast less PROGR NEG:COMPL
	He runs slower and slower.
	['ta4a? sa . 'pam4a tsat sutu kumaj ?asu]

Note, again, that when the comparison is negative, as in (6), the
complement is negated with the negation prefix _bei-_.

The pairs _puru kumai_ and _sutu kumai_ can act sortof like Tatari Faran
quantifiers, in that when an increasing or decreasing quantity is
referred to, they take the form <quantity>+<partitive noun>:

7)	sutu kumai sanis       so  tsuni upi  ipai ira.
	less PROGR person:PART CVY find  here at   COMPL
	Less and less people are here.
	(Lit., less and less people are found here - TF idiom for
	expressing a verb to-be that it doesn't have.)
	['sutu kumaj sanis:O . tsuni u"pi ?ipaj ?i4a]

8)	puru kumai sanis       so  pahaan kiki.
	more PROGR person:PART CVY angry  COMPL
	More and more people are (becoming) angry.
	['pu4u kumaj sanis:O . 'paha:n kiki]

More details can be found at the Tatari Faran website:

	http://conlang.eusebeia.dyndns.org/fara/index.html


--T

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