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Chapter 11. Competition in comparatives

A look at Romance scenarios
  • Anna M. Thornton
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All Things Morphology
This chapter is in the book All Things Morphology

Abstract

This chapter provides an initial exploration of the phenomenon of competition in comparatives in Romance languages. Latin had both synthetic and periphrastic comparatives, whose distribution was phonologically conditioned. Romance languages have generalized the periphrastic construction to all adjectives, but have also often inherited continuants of all or some of the four synthetic suppletive comparatives melior “better”, peior “worse”, māior “bigger”, minor “smaller”. Therefore, in the evolution from Latin to Romance languages, the stage is set for competition between synthetic and analytic constructions, such as Italian migliore vs. più buono “better”. This chapter discusses the solutions found in different Romance languages, as explained in descriptive grammars and other works. These solutions span from extinction of the synthetic suppletive forms altogether, to blocking of the analytic construction when the synthetic one is available, to overabundance between synthetic and analytic forms, to the creation of niches in which the two constructions distribute differentially. A corpus-based pilot study of Italian suggests a fruitful way to uncover such niches.

Abstract

This chapter provides an initial exploration of the phenomenon of competition in comparatives in Romance languages. Latin had both synthetic and periphrastic comparatives, whose distribution was phonologically conditioned. Romance languages have generalized the periphrastic construction to all adjectives, but have also often inherited continuants of all or some of the four synthetic suppletive comparatives melior “better”, peior “worse”, māior “bigger”, minor “smaller”. Therefore, in the evolution from Latin to Romance languages, the stage is set for competition between synthetic and analytic constructions, such as Italian migliore vs. più buono “better”. This chapter discusses the solutions found in different Romance languages, as explained in descriptive grammars and other works. These solutions span from extinction of the synthetic suppletive forms altogether, to blocking of the analytic construction when the synthetic one is available, to overabundance between synthetic and analytic forms, to the creation of niches in which the two constructions distribute differentially. A corpus-based pilot study of Italian suggests a fruitful way to uncover such niches.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. All things morphology 1
  4. Part I. Paradigms
  5. Chapter 2. Making sense of morphology 17
  6. Chapter 3. A formal restriction on gender resolution 41
  7. Part II. Words, stems, and affixes
  8. Chapter 4. Signs and words 57
  9. Chapter 5. Leaving the stem by itself 81
  10. Chapter 6. Stem constancy under the microscope 99
  11. Chapter 7. Major lexical categories and graphemic weight 117
  12. Chapter 8. Word formation in the brain 127
  13. Chapter 9. The suffixing preference 147
  14. Part III. Competition, inheritance, and defaults
  15. Chapter 10. Feature-based competition 171
  16. Chapter 11. Competition in comparatives 199
  17. Chapter 12. Multi-layered default in Ripano 215
  18. Part IV. Morphomes
  19. Chapter 13. Morphomes all the way down! 239
  20. Chapter 14. Conditional exponence 255
  21. Chapter 15. My favorite morphome 279
  22. Chapter 16. In further pursuit of the adjective 289
  23. Chapter 17. Two-suffix combinations in native and non-native English 305
  24. Part V. Interfaces
  25. Chapter 18. A short history of phonology in America 327
  26. Chapter 19. Realization Optimality Theory 349
  27. Chapter 20. A-prefixing in the ex-slave narratives 377
  28. Chapter 21. Trajectory of children’s verb formation in Hebrew as a heritage language 395
  29. Chapter 22. A primer for linguists on the reading wars 415
  30. Index of languages 431
  31. Index of names 433
  32. Index of terms 435
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.353.11tho

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. All things morphology 1
  4. Part I. Paradigms
  5. Chapter 2. Making sense of morphology 17
  6. Chapter 3. A formal restriction on gender resolution 41
  7. Part II. Words, stems, and affixes
  8. Chapter 4. Signs and words 57
  9. Chapter 5. Leaving the stem by itself 81
  10. Chapter 6. Stem constancy under the microscope 99
  11. Chapter 7. Major lexical categories and graphemic weight 117
  12. Chapter 8. Word formation in the brain 127
  13. Chapter 9. The suffixing preference 147
  14. Part III. Competition, inheritance, and defaults
  15. Chapter 10. Feature-based competition 171
  16. Chapter 11. Competition in comparatives 199
  17. Chapter 12. Multi-layered default in Ripano 215
  18. Part IV. Morphomes
  19. Chapter 13. Morphomes all the way down! 239
  20. Chapter 14. Conditional exponence 255
  21. Chapter 15. My favorite morphome 279
  22. Chapter 16. In further pursuit of the adjective 289
  23. Chapter 17. Two-suffix combinations in native and non-native English 305
  24. Part V. Interfaces
  25. Chapter 18. A short history of phonology in America 327
  26. Chapter 19. Realization Optimality Theory 349
  27. Chapter 20. A-prefixing in the ex-slave narratives 377
  28. Chapter 21. Trajectory of children’s verb formation in Hebrew as a heritage language 395
  29. Chapter 22. A primer for linguists on the reading wars 415
  30. Index of languages 431
  31. Index of names 433
  32. Index of terms 435
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