Theoretical aspects of degrees comparison. Comparativa analysis of degrees of comparison
CHAPTER I.
THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF DEGREES OF COMPARISON
Language is the
means by which we are enabled to understand the thoughts, feelings, and desires
of others. Language contains individual sounds, signs, or words for all man's
thoughts, feelings, and desires. This is why language is the spiritual heritage
and treasure of a nation through which all the thoughts, feelings, and desires
the people have experienced in the past are unlocked and released through words
and sounds to be handed down as something sacred from one generation to
another. Language is the biggest treasure of every nation.the first chapter of
this research work we have investigated the theoretical and linguistic
information about both, degrees of comparison in English and Romanian. In the
first subchapter we gathered some information about adjectives and adverbs,
their classification into several groups, the functions they posses as we
cannot imagine the degrees of comparison without adjective and adverbs. They
are the pillars of any process of comparison. Then we collected some
information about the degrees of comparison in English and Romanian.ability to
establish orderings among objects and make comparisons between them according
to the amount or degree to which they possess some property is a basic
component of human cognition. Languages reflect this fact: all languages
have syntactic categories that express gradable concepts, and all languages
have designated comparative constructions, which are used to express orderings
between two objects with respect to the degree or amount to which they possess
some property. English and Romanian is not an exception.
1.1 The
pillars of any degree of comparison
Comparison
is the act of comparing one thing to another, in order to determine
similarities and differences, relative size, relative importance, and so on. It
may specifically refer to computer science, for example: file comparison
<#"807974.files/image001.gif">
Intensifier
is a linguistic <#"807974.files/image002.gif">
In this numerical
diagram we can see that the most used degree is the positive degree and we
consider that it is the most used degree of comparison in general, both in
colloquial and literary language. It goes without saying that when we want to
describe a thing, a person or a phenomenon itself, when we want o say more
about their characteristics, age, colour, size, shape, in the majority of cases
we use adjective in positive degree. In this case
we can see the relationship between the adjectives and the noun to which it
applies. In order to uncover the nature of the adjective, we must be familiar
with both the denotation of the adjective and with its relation to the noun it
qualifies.
Adjectives and
adverbs with irregular degrees of comparison take the second place as
concerning the frequency of using such constructions.
Now, it does not
require a profound analysis to see that, in spite that there are some
adjectives that form the degrees of comparison in an irregular way,
they occupy the second place.
We use the
comparative degree of adjectives when we want to emphasize that an object is
superior compared to the other.
The use of more
comparison will result in the descriptive richness of the text, whereas a lack
of them may result in descriptive sparseness or thinness. The second goes null
comparative, as Lewis Carol uses a lot of unique things that cannot be
compared. The positive is the third, as adjectives may make the style of the
text ornate (or flowery), and slow down the action in the text. The superlative
is less used as the author think that there are few things that can be put at
superlative., analyzing the things said above, we can conclude the following
things:
The use of
comparatives shows the interest the text has in relating the qualities of something
to those of another thing.
The degrees of
comparison convey the degree of expressiveness produced by the adjective of
indication and so, it is very close to the stylistic category of
expressiveness.
CONCLUSION
English grammar has
been built over millennia in an eclectic fashion from a wide variety of
grammars, mostly from Europe. Words assimilated from other parts of the world
during the British Empire stage are shaped to fit into the established grammar.
The purpose of this
diploma paper that was to show the differences between the use of the English
degrees of comparison and Romanian one in different contexts was achieved.
Without knowing the function of the degrees of comparison, the non-native
English speakers face many difficulties in communicating their ideas in an
accurate form.
What we have learnt
about adjectives is that most English adjectives have comparative and
superlative forms. These are generally constructed in one of two ways: either
by suffixes (big, bigger, biggest) or by the use of the grammatical particles
more and most. Speaking about stylistic functions of adjectives and their
degrees of comparison we have learnt that the
main functions of adjectives is to give more expressive description to the
entities found in a text; so, the use of more adjectives will result in the
descriptive richness of the text, whereas a lack of them may result in
descriptive sparseness or thinness. A lot of adjectives may, however, make the
style of the text ornate (or flowery), and slow down the action in the text. We
have also learnt that adjectives may have a humorous effect on the reader. Now
we can understand why so many authors and writers use such a great amount of
adjectives in their works. They do it because their aim is to instill a certain
attitude to the article or book into a reader. We have also learnt such nicety
which will help us to make our speech much more expressive, as that, If the
speaker doesn’t want to tell something right to somebody’s face or to be harsh
or categorically call things by their proper names, he can add the suffix -ish
to the adjective and by this he will form so-called modal tactful words.results
of the research, the directions of the investigation, the methods used, serve
as a starting point for similar studies based on other related or unrelated
languages. They also serve to establish the means of expressing the conceptual
categories of degrees of comparison and tendencies in their development, to
establish the degree of coincidence and non-coincidence between the given
categories in English and Romanian concerning form and content.results could
also be used in solving some important confrontational linguistic problems of
translation, teaching English to students speaking Romanian and can also serve
as material for a special course in Comparative Linguistics. Though contrastive
analysis in the field of grammatical morphology has been considered as part of
confrontational linguistics for a long time, there is no clear cut distinction
between the confrontation of related and unrelated languages, using the results
of comparative philology of cognate languages in their confrontation with
unrelated languages. The confrontation of languages can be carried out by
comparing: a) unrelated languages; b) closely related languages; c) distantly
related languages, and d) also by simultaneous confrontation of related and
unrelated languages.main ideas which I have analyzed and selected from this
diploma paper are the followings:
* The
ability to establish orderings among objects and make comparisons between them
according to the amount or degree to which they possess some property is a
basic component of human cognition.
* All languages
have syntactic categories that express gradable concepts, and all languages
have designated comparative constructions, which are used to express orderings
between two objects with respect to the degree or amount to which they possess
some property.
* English
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language>, due to the complex
etymology <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology> of its lexicon
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexicon>, has two parallel systems of
comparison.
* The degree
of comparison may be expressed morphologically
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphology_(linguistics)>, or syntactically
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntax>.
* We use the
superlative to compare somebody/something with the whole group that she/he/it
belongs to.
* To say
that people, things etc are unequal in a particular way, we can use comparative
adjectives/adverbs
* Max Morenberg,
Otto Jespersen Otto <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Jespersen> and
James E. Augerot classify the adjectives in a original way. It this system
belong and so-called "absolute" adjectives
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjective>.
* In
Romanian the categories of comparison and of intensity know a much richer
configuration than Latin, having a remarkable expressive potential.
While
working on the diploma paper different sources were used, which were very
useful for the workmethods were used: analysis, generalization, skimming,
comparison and others.work was useful, interesting and pleasant. I think
without knowing the degrees of comparison, you cannot express yourself clearly
and so you cannot be understood by the others. So, here comes my course paper
to avoid such mistakes and problems and to make everything clear enough.in all,
it was very interesting to investigate the degrees of comparison in English and
Romanian and this diploma paper is far from being the end of the investigation.
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