Klallam Grammar Main Menu Klallam Grammar Alphabet and Sounds Basics Grammar Introduction: How to Use This Grammar 1 Transitive and Intransitive Verbs 2 Past and Future Tense 3 Basic Speech Acts 4 Nouns and Articles 5 Possessive Pronouns 6 Adjectives 7 Object Pronouns 8 The Preposition and Word Order 9 Negative Words 10 More Negative Words 11 Self and Each Other 12 Questions: ‘Who?’ and ‘What?’ 13 Subordinate Subjects in Questions 14 Questions: ‘Whose?’ 15 Focus Pronouns and Answering Questions 17 Conjunction: ‘And/with,’ ‘but/without,’ and ‘or’ 18 Questions: ‘When?’ 19 Time Expressions 20 More Time Expressions 21 Time Prefixes 22 Questions: ‘Where?’ 23 Some Place Expressions 24 Source, Way, and Destination 25 Serial Verbs 26 Questions: ‘How?’ and ‘How much?’ 27 While Clauses 28 Adverbial Expressions 29 Intensifier Auxiliaries 30 Conditional Clauses 31 Passive Sentences and Shifting Vowels 32 Lexical Suffixes 33 Collective Plural 34 Possessed Verbs 35 So Then ... 36 Reporting Verbs and Direct Quotes 37 Indirect Quotes 38 Questions: ‘Why?’ 39 Because 40 Cause 41 Speech Act Particles 42 The Actual: To Be Continuing 43 State, Result, and Duration 44 Participant Roles and Middle Voice 45 Recipient, Beneficiary, and Source Objects 46 Reflexive, Noncontrol Middle, and Contingent 47 Activity Suffixes 48 Relative Clauses 49 Verbal Prefixes 50 Movement and Development Suffixes 51 Nominalizing Prefixes 52 Adverbial Prefixes 53 More Demonstrative Articles 54 Objects of Intent, Emotion, Direction, and Success 55 More Reduplication Patterns 56 Interjections 57 Rare Suffixes 58 A Fully Annotated Text 59 Texts to Annotate 60 Conclusion Appendices Klallam Dictionary Klallam-English and English-Klallam sections only

16 Comparison

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Every language must allow for some way of comparing two things with respect to some quality. In comparing two things, the relationship between the things can be the same, as in ‘the cat is as big as the dog,’ or one item can be more than the other, as in ‘the cat is bigger than the dog.’ A grammatical construction that expresses that two things are the same or that equates two things is called equative. A construction that expresses the idea that one thing is more in some quality than another is called comparative.
In English the equative construction uses this formula: 
                                    X           is as  QUALITY as       Y
For example:           The cat  is as      big          as   the dog.
The English comparative construction basically uses this formula:
                                      X          is   QUALITYer    than     Y
For example:           The cat   is      bigger           than   the dog.
In addition to equative and comparative constructions, languages have a way of comparing one thing to a whole group of things, as in ‘my dog is the biggest of the dogs.’ This kind of construction is called the superlative.
In English the superlative uses this formula:
                                  X             is the  QUALITYest   of       Y
For example:          My dog    is the     biggest         of   the dogs.
In this section you will learn the formulas Klallam uses in expressing equative, comparative, and superlative constructions.
 

This page has paths:

  1. Grammar Montler, et al.

Contents of this path:

  1. 16.1. Equative construction
  2. 16.2. Comparative construction
  3. 16.3. Superlative construction