Taalportaal - the digital language portal

Dutch
Frisian
Saterfrisian
Afrikaans

Show all

Degree

quickinfo

As with adjectives, Frisian adverbs also have the possibility of expressing a higher degree (i.e. the comparative) and the highest degree (superlative) by morphological means. The relevant suffixes are -er and -st(e), respectively. An example is the adverb faak often, with its comparative form faker more often and the superlative form faakst or faakste most often. Parallel to predicatively used adjectives, adverbial superlatives require a preceding particle it it, as in hy komt dêr it faakste he comes there it often-SUPL he comes there most often. To express an even higher degree than the superlative, one can add the prefix alder-, for example in it alderfaakste most often of all. With comparatives, insertion of a /d/ is obligatory after a stem ending in /r/, and optional after /l/ and /n/. Some other, sometimes irregular, phonological changes apply as well. There are a few suppletive forms in the comparative and superlative, as leaver and leafste, belonging to the adverb graach gladly.

Apart from the use of suffixes to express degree, one can also use a periphrastic construction with mear more and meast most, respectively. For some adverbs, this is actually the only possibility, although it must be said that the construction with mear and meast is much less widespread than the use of the comparable forms in English.

The formation of degree forms of adverbs is actually not different from that of adjectives. More details can therefore be found in the topic on degree with adjectives.

References

⇑ Back to top

About this article

Author(s): Siebren Dyk

Category: Frisian Morphology

Keywords: degreecomparativesuperlativesuppletionperiphrastic construction

Version: 1.0, February 2017

Version history:

version	editor(s)	date	remarks
1.0	Siebren Dyk	February 2017

printreport errorcite

Jump to:

introduction
references
related articles