The comparative case (
abbreviated
An abbreviation () is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method including shortening, contraction, initialism (which includes acronym), or crasis. An abbreviation may be a shortened form of a word, usually ended with a trailing per ...
) is a
grammatical case
A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals) that corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a Nominal group (functional grammar), n ...
which marks a nominal to indicate comparison with another entity through the designation of a case marker. It is not to be confused with the
semblative case, a discrete grammatical case which expresses the similarity of one entity to another. The comparative case is distinct from
comparative degree in that the comparative case involves morphemes appearing on nouns, while in comparative degree morphemes appear on
adjectives
An adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main parts of speech of the English language, ...
or
adverbs An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a determiner, a clause, a preposition, or a sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, or level of certainty by ans ...
.
Examples
An example of a comparative case which designates similarity to something is found in
Mari, where the comparative case is the suffix () as in (1):
Mari also uses the comparative case in regards to languages, when denoting the language a person is speaking, writing, or hearing. Then, however, the accentuation varies slightly from the standard case. Usually, the suffix is not stressed. When it is used with languages, however, it is stressed.
An example of the comparative case marking the noun serving as the standard of comparison comes from the
Chechen suffix . For example, in (2) it appears on 'ice' in 'cold as ice':
Similarly, in the
Turkic language
Sakha (Yakut), the noun serving as the standard of comparison can be marked with the comparative case suffix ''-TĀGAr'' as in (3):
Nivkh
Nivkh or Amuric or Gilyak may refer to:
* Nivkh people (''Nivkhs'') or Gilyak people (''Gilyaks'')
* Nivkh languages or Gilyak languages
* Gilyak class gunboat, ''Gilyak'' class gunboat, such as the Russian gunboat Korietz#Second gunboat, second R ...
is another language with this comparative case suffix (''-yk/-ak''), as in (4):
This latter sense of ''comparative case'' is similar to locational comparatives, where a locational case such as the
ablative
In grammar, the ablative case (pronounced ; abbreviated ) is a grammatical case for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives in the grammars of various languages. It is used to indicate motion away from something, make comparisons, and serve various o ...
marks the noun in a standard of comparison, found in Turkic languages like (5) from
Uzbek:
The comparative case can also be found in
Archi, a
Northeast Caucasian language:
See also
*
Semblative case
* Formal case
*
Equative case
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
* Зорина, З. Г., Г. С. Крылова, and Э. С. Якимова. Марийский язык для всех, ч. 1. Йошкар-Ола: Марийское книжное издательство, 1990;
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Grammatical cases
Comparisons