Talk:Comparison (grammar)

Equative degree

I think I have read about some language having a degree of comparison called the equative and that its function is to tell that something has the same degree as something else of a feature: as large as the house, as weak as this. Does anyone know if I'm right about its existence and function? (Then please add the information about it). 130.236.119.139 11:16, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

That's the same as positive.

eg in German

positive : as long as : so lang wie

comparative: longer than : länger als

superlative : longest : am längsten
Gauravjuvekar (talk) 05:22, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

The original poster didn't ask about German, but a language in which it is a separate degree (or more precisely, grammatical form). One such language is Welsh, and other Insular Celtic languages have it too if I recall correctly. See equative case. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:12, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Is it possible to describe degree of comparison without using comparatives?

The introduction uses comparatives like "greater" and "most" to describe comparatives (like "greater" and "most"). Is there a way to avoid this kind of circularity? Augurar (talk) 17:34, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Of course there are - the vast majority of languages don't have anything like the 'degrees of comparison' found primarily in European languages. In fact, degrees of comparisons are not degrees at all (regardless of what some school grammar might say). They are simply different kinds of inflection that are used in different syntactic contexts. The comparative is (primarily) used when comparing an entity with some other entity with regard to some quality - the superlative is (primarily) used when comparing an entity with all other entities in a given group with regard som some quality.1700-talet (talk) 15:50, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Negative Comparisons

Is "less good" a comparative? "least good" a superlative? Are their languages in which these negative comparatives have their own inflections? Is there a proper term for them? 130.195.200.87 (talk) 14:17, 13 April 2013 (UTC) User:Furius

A more perfect union

I just wanted to draw the attention of anyone interested to this thread Talk:Preamble_to_the_United_States_Constitution#More_perfecter.2C_yet_no_more_gradabler that probably should have been started on this page in the first place. --Mudd1 (talk) 12:03, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Syntax and morphology

The article lead starts:

Comparison is a feature in the morphology of some languages, whereby adjectives and adverbs are inflected or modified ...

and later says:

Comparatives and superlatives may be formed morphologically, by inflection..., or syntactically...

The lead should reflect both, but I'm not sure how to phrase it. Ideas? --Macrakis (talk) 15:13, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

When?

...are English comparatives and superlatives made with -er and -est, respectively? Today I had a talk with someone on Template talk:Infobox element. I claimed the parameter "most stable isotopes" should be changed into "stablest isotopes", because that's what I learnt at school. The user in question pointed out that Wiktionary offered both possibilities, and that stablest sounded unnatural to him.
To be exact: I learnt that adjectives of two syllables, ending in -le, -er, -ow, -y, and -some get synthetic comparative forms: stable - stabler - stablest, bitter - bitterer - bitterest, shallow - shallower - shallowest, happy - happier - happiest and handsome - handsomer - handsomest. All other two syllable adjectives get more and most. Now this article doesn't give strict rules, only the vague observation that longer words 'typically' get analytic comparitives and superlatives more often. Not only do there seems to be two possibilities for many words, the example they give (polite - politer - politest or polite - more polite - most polite) falls outside the criteria I just mentioned. The English grammar article is even vaguer.
A category in which this article is included offers some clarity: it belongs to the "disputes in the English language". Okay, but what is exactly disputed? Which are the opposing views on the subject, which are the conflicting advices on the issue? Is there any difference between various forms of English? Are Americans likelier to say "more likely"? I hope someone can explain this issue to me, a poor non-native speaker who has so far relied on the rigid pedantry he received in secondary school... Steinbach (talk) 22:44, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

I asked you something. Steinbach (talk) 19:03, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

English does offer alternative ways fo saying most anything, and it changes with time. Currently, in America, at least, there is a tendency to create adjectives and verbs out of nouns, which many older native English speakers find objectionable. That doesn't mean these usages are incorrect English.

There are some forms that, while technically correct English, are awkward, and, thus, less used. The comparative likelier and the superlative stablest are two examples of these somewhat awkward words (though, I personally think stablest is more awkward than likelier). Paulmlieberman (talk) 20:00, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

User:Steinbach,

a) Wikipedia Talk pages are not question-answering forums like, say, Quora, and aren't really the appropriate place to ask questions like this, or good places to get answers to them.

b) The relevant section of this article is quite clear: there are some cases which can be characterized by general rules, and there are many others which are a matter of idiom. As in other cases like this, a good dictionary can help you here.

c) It is misleading to characterize this uncertainty or variation as a "dispute"; I have removed that category from the article.

d) I don't know if there are systematic differences among the various forms of English, or between various classes of speaker (e.g., older and younger). If you or some other editor can find reliable sources on the topic, by all means add the information. My personal intuitions (or User:Paulmlieberman's) are not Reliable Sources. --Macrakis (talk) 20:10, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

I think Macrakis should have pointed Steinbach to WP:RD/L. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:55, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Merger with Comparative and Superlative

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

I have merged Superlative to Comparison (grammar). I also merged most of the basic description from Comparative to that page, but I left some detailed description of the syntax of English comparatives at Comparative. Cnilep (talk) 03:45, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

---

This article and Comparative and Superlative overlap considerably, presenting much of the same material redundantly, or with slight variations. Either we should reorganize the articles to be less redundant (in particular removing the excessive detail in this article), or we should merge them into one. I suggest we start by merging into one, and only then decide if it is worth splitting off information into subarticles. --Macrakis (talk) 17:54, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

I strongly agree — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.211.41.90 (talk) 17:21, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Meanings

I just wanna know what afrikaans word and mean of Comparison?? 41.114.215.235 (talk) 17:25, 9 June 2022 (UTC)