Skip to main content

Adjectives, Comparatives & Superlatives

Adjectives, Comparatives & superlatives
Following on from the last post discussing Noun Attributes in Pali, we can now look at adjectives specifically, as well as Comparatives & Superlatives.

Adjectives as Attributes

An adjective is a word that describes, or qualifies a noun and describes a quality or characteristic. They are often termed 'describing' words:
  •  red, quiet, obedient, cold, new etc.
For instance:
adj adj adj adj adj
setā rasmiyo setā patodalaṭṭhi setaṃ chattaṃ setaṃ uṇhīsaṃ setāni vatthāni
nom
pl
fem
nom
pl
fem
nom
sgl
fem
nom
sgl
fem
nom
sgl
neut
nom
sgl
neut  
nom
sgl
neut
nom
sgl
neut
nom
pl
neut
nom
pl
neut  
white reins a white driver’s stick a white parasol a white turban white clothes

Actually technically, in the phrase 'the white reins' both 'white' & 'reins' are each nouns, but 'white' is being used as an attributive adjective because it is qualifying another noun, while 'reins' is termed a substantive noun because it represents an actual thing. This is important because in Pali many nouns can function either as substantives or adjectives.

In Pali, adjectives take the same case, gender and number as the substantive nouns they qualify and are usually placed before their substantive. If they come after, this is often for emphasis or there is an implied apposition or copula ‘is’ as we saw in the last post.
Other exception include when:
  • there are multiple adjectives to a single noun. In this event, one adjective often precedes while the rest follow the noun. 

Here's a tutorial on Pali adjectives:

Learn Pali Grammar - Adjectives

This tutorial looks at how adjectives operate in Pali and explains the agreement of adjectives with their substantive nouns.

Positives, Comparatives & Superlatives

Many adjectives have three distinct forms:
  • the straightforward adjective - traditionally called the positive form;
  • comparatives a special form which expresses a sense of ‘more than’ or ‘better than’
  • while superlatives mean ‘best of’ or ‘most’.
positive: tall sure clever
comparative: taller surer cleverer
superlative: tallest surest cleverest

English is quite irregular but we can see that:
  •  -er is generally added to form comparatives, 
  • while -est forms superlatives.
In Pali, the suffixes:
  •  –tara, -iya or –īya (sometimes -iyya or -īyya). are generally added to any kind of adjective to form the comparative; 
  • while –tama, -iṭṭha or - issika form the superlative.  
It's important to note that theses suffixes are then declined to agree with the substantives they qualify.

Comparatives

A feature of comparative constructions is the noun to which the comparison is made will be in Instrumental or Ablative case; (where English uses the word ‘than’).
dhanena seyyo
ins nom
n m
sgl sgl
wealth, riches better
better (than) wealth
koci-añño attanā piyataro
nom abl nom
m m m
sgl sgl sgl
whoever-else oneself (more) dear
whoever else (is) more dear (than) oneself?
A more complex example,
adj       adj   Comp adj
mānusakehi kho āvuso, kāmehi dibbā kāmā abhikkantatarā
Instr, abl indec voc instr, abl nom, abl nom,abl nom,abl
m   m m m m m
pl   pl pl pl, sgl pl,sgl pl,sgl
human indeed friend desires divine desires more brilliant
Indeed friend, divine desire/s, (are) more brilliant (than) human desires
If you look up each word in this example there are lots of variant declensions – more than I’ve listed – and so we need to thin them out. First of all, kho is an enclitic and thus can’t begin a sentence and this is true of anything in vocative too - so these can be moved to the start. The only nouns in the rest of sentence are both masculine and as adjectives must agree with their nouns we can use this to cut down the variants. So mānusakehi must be instrumental or ablative plural and dibbā must be either nominative plural or ablative sgl. Now we can see that mānusakehi agrees with kāmehi therefore ‘human desires’ and dibbā agrees with kāmā - and with Abhikkantatarā too. Which means this is the the thing compared; ‘divine desire/s’ are ‘more brilliant’.  And we know that the noun to which the comparison is made is in instrumental / ablative so ‘more brilliant’ than ‘human desires’ .
Finally this leaves choosing whether ‘divine desire/s’ is singular or plural. I would say that as there is an implied ‘is’ linking the two halves of the comparison and ‘human desires’ is definitely plural so this would force dibbā kāmā to be plural also. And this will cast the whole thing into nominative making it the subject. A bit long winded I know but hey...

Comparisons may also be expressed simply by an Ablative followed by an adjective!

Superlatives

With superlatives the compared noun generally will be in either Genitive or Locative plural; (where English uses the word ‘of’).
khattiyo jane seṭṭho
nom loc nom
m m m
sgl pl sgl
a warrior person(s) foremost
the warrior (is) foremost (amongst) people
virāgo seṭṭho dhammānaṃ
nom nom gen/dat
m m m
sgl sgl pl
dispassion foremost dhammas
Dispassion (is) the foremost (of) the dhammas
Beware  pronominal forms of 'Ka': katara ‘which one?’ and katama ‘which?, which one?’. They look like comparatives but are not!..

Other words used Adjectively

Though Pali has words which are specifically adjective in meaning, it doesn't really distinguish between nouns and adjective.

Adjectives from Nouns

Any noun stem can be turned into an adjective by use of suffixes:
-vant, -vat before nouns stems in a/ā,
-(v)in also to stems in a,
-mant, -mat to the other stem endings

Nouns stems ending in the above often have a meaning of possession and can be rendered in English  by -ed. (possessing wings = winged)

Others adjective suffixes include:
-āla
-ālu
-ava
-ita
-ila

They then decline like past active participles in –ant, –va, –ma or –(v)in; This means that although they must match their qualified noun in case, gender and number, they may not be identical in form. Note: some dictionaries drop the final 'n' of –(v)in.

Adjectives from Verbs

Verbs can also take the suffix -in (and be declined like participles) which can be rendered in English by -ing. For instance flying, falling etc. These are similar to present participles and tend to act as adjectives: a flying kite, falling rock etc.

For more details see my post Pali Adjectival Suffixes.

Adjectives functioning as Substantives

Any adjective may also stand alone and act as a substantive noun (where there is no other substantive), in which case they are always in neuter.
It is also possible to make an adjective into an adverb (easy -> easily) by placing it in the neuter accusative singular:

Some examples of the above:
noun poss. adj. subsatntive
dhana dhani(n)
wealth wealthy the wealthy
pakkha pakkhi(n)
wing winged a bird
hattha hatthi(n)
hand handed an elephant
bhaga bhagavant
fortune fortunate the blessed
saññā saññi(n)
perception conscious sentient being
verb adjective subsatntive
kara kari(n)
to do making maker
dadā dadi(n)
to give giving giver

Numerals

I include numerals here as they are often used adjectivally - 'the three men' etc. The way numerals behave in Pali is unusually varied. For instance:
  • Numerals 1, 3 & 4 act like adjectives and decline in number, gender and case agreeing with their nouns.
  • However, 2 & 5 through 18 are always plural and without gender distinction, but still change to reflect the case of their nouns.
  • Numbers 1-18 behave adjectivally - while 19 and above act in apposition to their nouns thus generally taking the same case as the noun they qualify but are either feminine or neuter in gender and always singular!


See also compounds and participles for more info...


Next post: Getting possessive; how Pali expresses 'having' by the Genitive case.

More posts

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What is Pali Language? A little history

In all these grammar tutorials we have never stopped to ask: What is Pali?” “What does the word mean?” “What are the origins of Pali? And this is what we will investigate in this post.... What is Pali & Who Speaks it? Well, let's get the obvious answer out of the way: Pali is an ancient Middle Indo-Aryan language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language, in which, the scriptures of Theravada school of Buddhism - or Tipiṭaka - have been preserved and passed down. True. Today Pali is studied mainly to gain access to Theravada Buddhist scriptures, and is frequently chanted in a ritual context. But when we say a ' language ', most languages are named either after a population or a region, and we have no evidence of a region called Pali or even a population of Pali speakers... Along side this, nowhere in the Pali canon itself is there a mention of a language called Pali!

Sutta Number to PTS reference converter

Easily look up PTS references in the Sutta Piṭaka. [New expanded coverage tables. Includes alternate numbering. Search accepts space, comma or period separated numbers, case insensitive, diacritic insensitive.] Quick Jump Table   PTS Vol Dīgha Nikāya (DN) D i , D ii , D iii Majjhima Nikāya (MN)   M i , M ii , M iii Saṁyutta Nikāya (SN) S i , S ii , S iii , S iv , S v Aṅguttara Nikāya (AN)   A i , A ii , A iii , A iv , A v Go to Khuddaka Nikaya (KN) ( New! KN ref converter ) Use the quick jump table above; Note: For Vol. i of SN, there are two sets of PTS page numbers for each sutta. This is because the L. Feer editions differs from Somaratne 1999. Or type a Sutta number or name into the search boxes below to search that column of the table!

Learn Pali: Best way to start? 5 Tips to make it easy

Once people have answered the question: "Why learn Pali?" The next query is: "How do I learn Pali?" Here’s the way I suggest you begin with your study of Pali. Build foundations for language learning Start at the right level Stick with it Build vocabulary Make use of the Pali language tools 1 Build foundations for language learning One thing that you really should have before beginning to learn Pali is a basic understanding of general grammatical terms and concepts. Many of the Pali language grammar guides seem to assume you have studied Sanskrit or Latin before. If you haven’t, and you really don’t know the difference between a subject and an object, or the meanings of such terms as nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, prepositions, or declension and conjugation - then perhaps you should spend some time studying English grammar. I found that even though I'm a native English sp

Pali Alphabet & using the PED Dictionary

What is the Pali Alphabet? How is it arranged? How do you use a Pali dictionary? Well, the first thing to note is that Pāli is written in many different scripts. As the buddhist canon travelled, local people used either Indian scripts or switched to their own local scripts. For more on local scripts see here . But for now we are just interested in the Romanized Pali alphabet. This runs Vowels first, then consonants. as follows: a, ā, i, ī, u, ū, e, o (ṃ*) k, kh, g, gh, (ṅ) c, ch, j, jh, ñ ṭ, ṭh, ḍ, (ḍh), (ṇ) t, th, d, dh, n p, ph, b, bh, m y, r, l, (ḷ), (ḷh), v, s, h [Note: the letters in brackets have no entries in the dictionary.] Pali is a phonetic  language so each entry above represents a single sound. Every letter always has the same pronunciation regardless of its context, so no letter has more than one pronunciation, and no sounds are represented by more than one letter. As there are more sounds in Pāli than letters in the roman alphabet, to make distinctions, special

Velthuis to Diacritics converter & Pali Dictionary Lookup Tool

Convert to Unicode Type these Velthuis codes to convert into Pali unicode. aa → ā .m → ṃ ii → ī .t → ṭ uu → ū .d → ḍ "n → ṅ .n → ṇ