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Unless someone has sources which support superlatives being ungrammatical in groups of cardinality less than three, they oughtn't make that claim on this page, I left it as a claim made by some as part of their grammars, but it would be best if they would link to a specific English grammar which made this claim. It certainly isn't Universally accepted. -- 216.143.191.131
The article starts by defining superlative as "...an adjective or adverb [that] indicates that an entity transcends at least two other entities," But then goes on to say later that one other entity is sufficient, contradicting itself. I assume this was the result of differing opinions editing at different stages, but the article really should be unified. I'll get round to this later if no-one has any objections. —
Asbestos |
Talk
12:44, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
No one has any objections. As it stands, the initial, general paragraph makes little sense. The one, single reference given is to a little piece by Arnold Zwicky which attacks this strange idea that the superlative cannot be used unless there are more than two things involved. -- Greg ( talk) 23:30, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Here is a link from Merriam Webster that says the "superlative of two is alive and well in current English". The reference that is used in the article to justify the claim that "when comparing only two entities, use of the superlative is ungrammatical" does not support the claim at all. In fact, the reference says, "that it takes three to make a superlative, is not a rule of English and is therefore irrelevant to any ethical considerations." Additionally, it only references the use of the superlative "best" when comparing two or more entities. I have no idea how this claim accompanied by an irrelevant reference made it into the article, but I will be removing it. -- InnerSpace ( talk) 15:54, 19 April 2010 (UTC) http://books.google.com/books?id=2yJusP0vrdgC&pg=PA881&lpg=PA881&dq=%22superlative+of+two%22&source=bl&ots=nYwQndwZZ1&sig=FnLAIXc4T2YfJaXfFcPjVZZHNFc&hl=en&ei=gxvLS-2nPIWKlwfg7cGqBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22superlative%20of%20two%22&f=false
Hi Aav, perhaps you can clarify this for me? You are saying "the comparative superlative is created by inserting one of the adjectives "plus" or "moins" between the definite article and the adjective determining the noun". What exactly is a "comparative superlative" in French? Surely any superlative in French is formed that way - la plus belle femme. The determiner plus between the definite article and the adjective always indicates the superlative? It is either a "comparative" or a "superlative"? It can't be both? Dieter Simon 00:00, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
In French, the superlative is formed by adding in the definite article, not plus. So you can have a comparative and a superlative both with plus in it, but the superlative will have the definite article. Example:
Comparative: Cette femme est plus belle. This woman is more beautiful.
Superlative: Cette femme est la plus belle. This woman is the most beautiful.
Hope this answers your question. :)
( Moonbeast 20:35, 17 April 2006 (UTC))
I see a reference to "elative" (as a third category alongside comparative and superlative). It seems from the discussion that "elative" refers to the preceding section on "superlatives with absolutes", but I cannot find a definition here or elsewhere laying out what exactly "elative" means. Any thoughts / recommendations?
TimothyMills ( talk) 18:41, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
Being a bit of a stickler, I've long been bothered by the use of the word 'superlative' as an adjective in itself - usually a synonym for 'great', 'fantastic', 'cool', and suchlike. "That was a superlative performance", as one sports commentator once put it. This has always sounded wrong to me (if only because in that usage it could suggest either the best or the worst performance, or the biggest, the smallest, the strangest - and so on). But I've never been able to find an authoritative source indicating whether such usage is acceptable or not. Some dictionaries list it as such simply because they record usage. Is this an issue for anyone else, and should it be addressed in this article? If so, does anyone know of any good references? - Skadus ( talk) 13:20, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
From the article: "Browsing in some of the best-known search-engines for "more complete" or "most complete" would establish the frequency of this usage by many millions of examples."
I'm not sure that "go look it up for yourself" is the ideal approach for Wikipedia. Have we got an actual citation we can put in here? Also, I've tagged a couple of statements in the paragraph in question because they seem to be assertions made without any actual citations (the claim that using a superlative with incomparables like 'unique' is grammatically okay because it doesn't really mean what it says, but actually means something else). Usage might make this point, and yes, a Goog Your Favourite Search Engine search might support that to some extent, but I'd be hesitant to rely on an Internet search alone to give me an authoritative answer on anything. -
Skadus (
talk)
10:26, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
I think you mean ROMANIC languages
I suggested that Superlative case be merged into here. It would be easy to include a section, and it is an unreferenced stub as-is. DietFoodstamp ( talk) 22:24, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
The superlative case is a totally different thing. So I presumed to remove the "merge to" template from the article. Kontos ( talk) 00:09, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Please visit and comment here:
Many thanks.
![]() | This redirect does not require a rating on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||
|
Unless someone has sources which support superlatives being ungrammatical in groups of cardinality less than three, they oughtn't make that claim on this page, I left it as a claim made by some as part of their grammars, but it would be best if they would link to a specific English grammar which made this claim. It certainly isn't Universally accepted. -- 216.143.191.131
The article starts by defining superlative as "...an adjective or adverb [that] indicates that an entity transcends at least two other entities," But then goes on to say later that one other entity is sufficient, contradicting itself. I assume this was the result of differing opinions editing at different stages, but the article really should be unified. I'll get round to this later if no-one has any objections. —
Asbestos |
Talk
12:44, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
No one has any objections. As it stands, the initial, general paragraph makes little sense. The one, single reference given is to a little piece by Arnold Zwicky which attacks this strange idea that the superlative cannot be used unless there are more than two things involved. -- Greg ( talk) 23:30, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Here is a link from Merriam Webster that says the "superlative of two is alive and well in current English". The reference that is used in the article to justify the claim that "when comparing only two entities, use of the superlative is ungrammatical" does not support the claim at all. In fact, the reference says, "that it takes three to make a superlative, is not a rule of English and is therefore irrelevant to any ethical considerations." Additionally, it only references the use of the superlative "best" when comparing two or more entities. I have no idea how this claim accompanied by an irrelevant reference made it into the article, but I will be removing it. -- InnerSpace ( talk) 15:54, 19 April 2010 (UTC) http://books.google.com/books?id=2yJusP0vrdgC&pg=PA881&lpg=PA881&dq=%22superlative+of+two%22&source=bl&ots=nYwQndwZZ1&sig=FnLAIXc4T2YfJaXfFcPjVZZHNFc&hl=en&ei=gxvLS-2nPIWKlwfg7cGqBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22superlative%20of%20two%22&f=false
Hi Aav, perhaps you can clarify this for me? You are saying "the comparative superlative is created by inserting one of the adjectives "plus" or "moins" between the definite article and the adjective determining the noun". What exactly is a "comparative superlative" in French? Surely any superlative in French is formed that way - la plus belle femme. The determiner plus between the definite article and the adjective always indicates the superlative? It is either a "comparative" or a "superlative"? It can't be both? Dieter Simon 00:00, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
In French, the superlative is formed by adding in the definite article, not plus. So you can have a comparative and a superlative both with plus in it, but the superlative will have the definite article. Example:
Comparative: Cette femme est plus belle. This woman is more beautiful.
Superlative: Cette femme est la plus belle. This woman is the most beautiful.
Hope this answers your question. :)
( Moonbeast 20:35, 17 April 2006 (UTC))
I see a reference to "elative" (as a third category alongside comparative and superlative). It seems from the discussion that "elative" refers to the preceding section on "superlatives with absolutes", but I cannot find a definition here or elsewhere laying out what exactly "elative" means. Any thoughts / recommendations?
TimothyMills ( talk) 18:41, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
Being a bit of a stickler, I've long been bothered by the use of the word 'superlative' as an adjective in itself - usually a synonym for 'great', 'fantastic', 'cool', and suchlike. "That was a superlative performance", as one sports commentator once put it. This has always sounded wrong to me (if only because in that usage it could suggest either the best or the worst performance, or the biggest, the smallest, the strangest - and so on). But I've never been able to find an authoritative source indicating whether such usage is acceptable or not. Some dictionaries list it as such simply because they record usage. Is this an issue for anyone else, and should it be addressed in this article? If so, does anyone know of any good references? - Skadus ( talk) 13:20, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
From the article: "Browsing in some of the best-known search-engines for "more complete" or "most complete" would establish the frequency of this usage by many millions of examples."
I'm not sure that "go look it up for yourself" is the ideal approach for Wikipedia. Have we got an actual citation we can put in here? Also, I've tagged a couple of statements in the paragraph in question because they seem to be assertions made without any actual citations (the claim that using a superlative with incomparables like 'unique' is grammatically okay because it doesn't really mean what it says, but actually means something else). Usage might make this point, and yes, a Goog Your Favourite Search Engine search might support that to some extent, but I'd be hesitant to rely on an Internet search alone to give me an authoritative answer on anything. -
Skadus (
talk)
10:26, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
I think you mean ROMANIC languages
I suggested that Superlative case be merged into here. It would be easy to include a section, and it is an unreferenced stub as-is. DietFoodstamp ( talk) 22:24, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
The superlative case is a totally different thing. So I presumed to remove the "merge to" template from the article. Kontos ( talk) 00:09, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Please visit and comment here:
Many thanks.