Good evening, afternoon, or morning to you, people of r/conlangs. Today's Saturday, and that means it's time for another typological paper! Once again, there will be some prompts for you to discuss in the comments.
Comparative Constructions: An Introduction (Treis)
This week's paper was submitted by u/Anhilare and talks about the typology of comparative constructions. Important notions when discussing this topic are the comparee ("what is being compared against some standard of comparison", e.g. Mary), the standard of comparison ("what the comparee is being compared against", e.g. Peter), the standard marker ("marker of the grammatical function of the standard", e.g. than), the parameter of comparison ("property of comparison", e.g. tall) and finally the degree marker, which marks the degree of presence or absence of a property in the comparee, e.g. more or -er. The examples given for each term may be combined in one sentence: "Mary is taller than Peter". Now that I have discussed these terms, let's move onto the prompts. When you answer them, feel free to make use of these terms.
- How does comparison work in your language?
- Are there differences between the distinct adjective degrees? If so, how do they manifest?
- Are there differences between quantitative and qualitative comparisons?
- How do adjectives work in your language in general? How are they negated?
Remember to try to comment on other people's languages
Submit your papers here!
So, that's about it for this week's edition. See you next Saturday, and happy conlanging!