Detail #137, pt3: The Comparative Object Participle

Ok, we've established that relativized genitives and relativized objects of comparison are somewhat exceptional. Let us however do something with them anyway. This post will deal with the objects of comparison, a fourth installment will deal with the genitive participle.

I do not propose that this is a feasible source for such a morpheme, but it'll be easy to remember when seeing it): -than for 'object of comparison participle' - 'John's runthan Eric' - Eric, who John runs faster|more|etc than.

Verbs have associated qualities or quantities, and if no other quality or quantity has been called attention to in the wider context, the associated quality or quantity is assumed. Thus runthan ≃ who x runs faster than, eatthan ≃ who x eats more than, singthan ≃ who x sings more beautifully than. If both are subjects, X can be a genitive attribute of the participle (as in the example given above), if both are obliques or datives, X is in the appropriate case. Genitives can also appear, e.g.

Eric's John's runthan dog

In this case, the dog's speed could imaginably be compared to John's, but the language's grammar assumes that like is compared to like. I.e. Eric's [....] dog is compared to some other dog, and clearly that is John's. With pronouns, genitive forms are not used for proper possession but with participles and with verbs that take genitive arguments. Possessive non-genitive pronouns exist for all persons. To make this more clear, pronouns sometimes are used with the noun extracted. The possessive pronoun is not inflected further for case -

Eric his(poss) John his(poss) runthan dog - Eric's dog, which John's is faster than

Eric his(poss) John his(gen) runthan dog - Eric's dog, which John is faster than

However, such a specific use of a participle may seem somewhat odd, and to justify its existence we probably need it doing way more in the language. So, let us look into what it means without any arguments 'to the left' (let us use that as a shorthand for 'arguments', as opposed to the noun to which the participle is an attribute, and 'to the right' as a shorthand for 'the head noun'; these refer only to the position used in the English-based metalanguage I am using to describe the system).

"runthan John".

If the language conflates participles and gerunds, this might make sense - "runthan John is difficult" - Running faster than John is difficult. "What is your goal in life? Singthan Johnny Cash!"

Omitting the noun 'to the right' generalizes the comparison or specifies it as being somewhat reflexive - i.e. x needs to be better than it is.

In a nominal use the participle 'runthan' does not mean 'the one that jumps the highest', but rather a thing or person who is held as a standard. Thus,

we need knowthan.plur - we need people who are skillfull enough 

As participles, of course, these may encode other types of subclauses and embedded verbs as well -

my livethan this I will be happy - if I survive this, I will be happy

his-gen finishthan, he gets cigarettes - whoever finishes first gets cigarettes 

need chicken.acc dothan - the chicken need to be done better (it is raw)

need house soldthan - the house must be sold at a better price (than offered)

 Some lexemes that are verbs in English, such as exceed, suffice, extinguish, win, survive, outsmart, etc could easily just come up as participles in a language with this type of participle:

livethan = surviving, survival (as in survive a person, but maybe by extension survive the duration of some event)

competethan, finishthan = winning, winning over

smartthan = outsmarting

killthan = killing as many or more of x than there are x, thus slightly violating the 'compare like with like'-state of the language, as this is not 'kill as many or more than x kills'. As stated, voice slightly breaks down if we try to translate this into a single voice, so that's a thing we just have to live with.

lastthan = outlasting, exceeding, sufficing

bethan = outlasting, exceeding, sufficing

Since these only exist as participles, they require auxiliaries when they encode the main content of the clause (or alternatively, the language permits using participles as predicates without auxiliaries.)

These are not finished ideas, but rather hints at where one could imaginably go with a system like this.