Elative (gradation)

In Semitic linguistics, the elative (Arabic: اِسْمُ تَفْضِيلٍ‎ ismu tafḍīlin, literally meaning "noun of preference") is a stage of gradation in Arabic that can be used both for a superlative and comparative. The Arabic elative has a special inflection similar to that of colour and defect adjectives, though differing in the details. To form an elative, the consonants of the adjective's root are placed in the context ʾaCCaC (or ʾaCaCC if the second and third consonants are the same), which, generally speaking, in most situations inflects for case but not for gender or number.[1] Furthermore, elatives belong to the diptote declension. E.g. ṣaghīr (صغير) 'small' derives the elative ’aṣghar (أصغر) 'smaller', jadīd (جديد) 'new' derives ’ajad (أجد) 'newer', ghanī (غني) 'rich' derives ’aghnā (أغنى) 'richer'.

However, there are several words that have particular feminine and plural forms when the elative is prefixed with the definite article,[2] although the agreement is not always observed in modern usage.[3] The feminine singular in such cases takes the context CuCCā, the masculine plural takes ’aCCaCūna or ’aCāCiC, and the feminine plural takes CuCCayāt or CuCaC. These feminine and plural forms had much more extensive use in ancient poetry.[4] E.g. The adjective kabīr كبير 'big' is changed to ’akbar أكبر, kubrā كبرى in the feminine singular, ’akābir (أكابر) in the masculine plural and kubrayāt (كبريات) in the feminine plural.

The adjectives ’āḫar (آخر) 'other' and ’awwal (أول) 'first', as exceptions, take elative forms even though they do not have comparative meaning.

References

  1. ↑ Ryding, Karin (2005). Modern Standard Arabic Reference Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 246. ISBN 9780511114809.
  2. ↑ Bennett, Patrick R. (1998). Comparative Semitic Linguistics: A Manual. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1575060217.
  3. ↑ Badawi, El-Said; Carter, M. G.; Gully, Adrian (2003). Modern Written Arabic: A Comprehensive Grammar. Routledge. p. 250. ISBN 978-1575060217.
  4. ↑ Haywood, J. A. (1965). A New Arabic Grammar of the Written Language. London: Lund Humphries. p. 88. ISBN 0-85331-585-X.


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