[etni] comparatives
- From: Miriam Kalla <mkalla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2004 00:59:30 +0200
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It seems to me that we all get tireder and tireder with the discussion about
the correct form of the comparative of some adjectives.Yet I do hope that my
few lines will shed some light and make you curiouser and curiouser (as indeed
Alice in Wonderland is so often quoted for saying it ,and in our list it was
quoted only once....by Elizabeth Yuval).
Being a student of Prof. Yishai Tobin at BG University I can't resist referring
to this dilemma. In his book "Semiotics and Linguistics"(1990) Longman Group
UK, Tobin dedicates a whole chapter to this issue. Tobin is a Semiotician,
which means that he believes that each sign has an invariant meaning.
Therefore, "tireder" or "sadder" appear in the language with an invariant
meaning which differ from the meaning of " more tired" and "more sad". The
adjectives which carry the "er" suffix are marked for semantic integrality
while the form with "more" is the unmarked form.( I think it is not the proper
place to explain the difference between marked and unmarked here and now...).
Both forms appear in the language but their meaning is different. We are not
always aware of the meaning but Tobin analyses different examples in different
contexts and his research is very convincing.
Tobin says (p.245) : "The shorter the form the more frequently it is used and
the more basic its meaning, the longer the form the less frequently it is used,
the more morphemes it contains , and therefore the more specific (and
subsequently less fundamental) its meaning."
In the same book , Tobin also deals with the difference between "too" and
"also" and with the pair "if" and "weather". As with the comparative system the
basic axiom is that each sign in the language carries an invariant meaning.
There are no complete synonyms.
I am not sure if I made you curiouser or more curious to read Tobin's
"Semiotics and Linguistics" but I am sure that the interest so many of you had
shown in the long discussion justifies my input.
BTW, it might be an idea to ask Prof. Tobin to give a lecture about it in The
ETAI conference in the summer.
Miriam
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