New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin by Andrew L Sihler

Author:Andrew L Sihler [Sihler, Andrew L]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Foreign Language Study, Latin, Ancient Languages, Language Arts & Disciplines, Linguistics, General, Literary Collections, Ancient & Classical
ISBN: 0195083458
Google: tcVTC9XJN-8C
Amazon: B006ZTNRC8
Publisher: OxfordUP
Published: 1994-11-17T00:00:00+00:00

COMPARISON OF ADJECTIVES

348. Adjectives in PIE as discussed in 337-47 are in what is called the positive degree: they express the generic force of the adjective without semantic coloration such as emphasis, attenuation, contrast, pejoration, and so on. There were several adjective stems in PIE, however, which did qualify the force of an adjective. As the daughter languages developed, one or another of these formations evolved into the ‘comparative and superlative degrees’ of adjectives familiar from the principal languages of Europe.

One such suffix was *-yos- (349-51), an INTENSIVE marker signifying ‘very; rather; to a marked degree’. This yields the L comparative, and is one of the ingredients in the G comparative. It is also the basis of the L and G superlative. Another stem, *-(t)ero- (355-6), was PARTICULARIZING and by implcation ANTONYMIC: ‘the hot one (not the cold one)’; ‘our (own)’. This function explains the distinction between *H2 en-tero- ‘the other (of two); a different one’ and *H2 el-yo- ‘another, some other’, and the prominence of the suffix in the possessive pronouns (L noster, G μτ∈ρος ‘our [own]’), for example, and in the expression of such notions as *deksitero- ‘the one on the right’.

Various other modifications of adjectival force are handled morphologically in one or another of the IE languages, such as the Celtic equative (OIr. dénithir ‘as swift’ to dian ‘swift’) and the English attenuative (biggish). But most such modifications are handled in IE languages syntactically, as in English very big, as big as, too big.

349. THE PIE INTENSIVE MARKER *-yos- was a primary suffix, that is, it was added directly to the root (which was in full grade) rather than to the stem of the adjective. So to a u-stem like *sweH2 du- ‘sweet’ the intensive/comparative would have been *sweH2 d-yos- rather than ×sweH2 duyos- or the like. This accords with the view that the original meaning of the suffix was different from our notion of a paradigmatic comparative, which should be a derivative of the generic itself (as is clearly the case in NE damnedest and L difficilior). Thus Vedic átavyas-, a form with both the intensive suffix and the privative prefix, means ‘not very strong’ (from tavyás- ‘very strong’) rather than ‘very unstrong; very weak’. That is, it is a privative based on an intensive, not the other way around like the NE comparative untidier.

MORPHOLOGICAL COMPOSITES (*-isto-, *-ison-, and the like). Several formations were made up of combinations of *-is- (the zero grade of *-yos-) with some other adjectival element. The two oldest, on the basis of their distribution in the IE family, are *-is-to- (InIr., G, and Gmc.), and *-is-on- (G and Gmc.). A third, *-is-mo-, is found only in Ital. and Celt., and appears to be an innovation peculiar to those two groups.

The first of these, *-isto-, forms what is traditionally known as the superlative (‘most sweet’). Semantically it is better taken as more like Fr. le plus, that is, a comparative with a particularizing marker, so that *sweH2 d-yos- ‘very sweet’, *sweH2 d-is-to- ‘the very sweet’ are like Fr.

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