Experience III, Lesson 6: Irregular Adjectives and Adverbs

Comparative Adjectives

In English some adjectives and adverbs are highly irregular: good/well, better, best; bad/ill, worse, worst; much, more, most.

So also in Latin, some frequently used adjectives are irregular, and so will not form as learned in Lesson 4

Irregular Adjective

• Since the comparative of multus is naturally plural, and doesn't have a singular form: 'plures' means 'more men' or 'more women', 'plura' means 'more things'.
• Because of their meaning, some adjectives are comparative only, not having a positive or superlative degree. (They look familiar too.) For example:

  junior	junius	younger
  prior	prius	earlier, prior
  senior	senius	older

• The superlative adjective "summus, -a, -um" = highest, greatest; has no exactly corresponding positive or comparative.

Comparative Adverbs

As above some Latin Adverbs are irregular, i.e. they do not form as learned in Lesson 5.

Irregular Adverbs

• Although parvus and magnus do not form positive adverbs, there are substitutes available. "paulum" is an adverb meaning "a little, somewhat; small, short", "magnopere" means "greatly, exceedingly"; "tantopere" means "so much"
• There are some adverbs which are not formed from adjectives, and appear irregular in their positive form. For example:

  Positive	Comparative	Superlative
  tuto	tutius	tutissime	safely
  cito	citius	citissime	quickly
  diu	diutius	diutissime	1. by day, all day 2. (for) a long time
  saepe	saepius	saepissime	often, frequently
  nuper	-	nuperrime	recently
  satis	satius	-	enough; better, rather

Now go on to Homework 5+6

Third Experience Latin - Fr. Reginald Foster

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