Comparatives and Superlatives

More fun with Latin adverbs!

Today we are looking at how to recognise, form and translate adverbs in the comparative and the superlative forms in Latin.

If you've missed my recent posts, I've written one on adverbs and I've also done comparative adjectives and superlative adjectives, and you can find all my previous posts here in the bambasbat archive.

Before the “more fun”, what is an adverb?

Adverbs describes a verb, by giving more information about how an action takes place.

In English, they’re usually translated using the suffix -ly. For example, slowly, quickly, happily.

And they are often formed from an adjective. Happily comes from happy, slowly comes from slow.

Ok, ready for the “more fun” now

Comparative and superlative adverbs are a little bit different.

Translating comparatives

Comparative adverbs are translated using, -er, such as faster, quicker, bolder.

You can also translate comparatives using “more”. For example, she sang more happily than the other girl. She ran more slowly than him.

In English, we use “more” and a normal adverb to show the comparison, but in Latin the comparative would be one shown by single word.

Translating superlatives

Superlative adverbs are formed using -est in English. Quickest, slowest.

Superlatives can also be translated as “most”. For examples, she ran most happily out of everyone.

Or they can also be translated using “very”. She ran very happily.

Again, in English the words “most” or “very” are accompanied by an adverb, whereas in Latin the superlative is one word.

Latin Comparatives

Let's have a look at comparative adverbs first. Now if you read my adverbs post a couple of weeks ago, you will hopefully remember that there are two types of adjective and therefore two types of adverb that you can have.

Luckily, comparative adverbs all form the same way no matter which type of adjective they come from, so you don't need to worry about the two different types.

I'm going to show you them both, but they do the same thing in the comparative.

2-1-2 adverbs to comparative adverbs

Let’s take laetus, laeta, laetum, which is my adjective, meaning “happy”.

The adverb form of this is laete, meaning “happily”.

In order to get the comparative adverb, take the -e off the end of the adjective stem, and add on -ius, to get laetius. This means “more happily”.

That’s how 2 1 2 adjectives form into comparative adverbs.

3-3 adverbs to comparative adverbs

Now, I can also have 3-3 adjectives like ferox, ferocis. This means “fierce” or “ferocious”.

To make that into a normal adverb take the -is off the genitive singular ferocis, and add -iter onto the end.

To form that into a comparative adverb, take off -iter and add on the same ending as above, -ius, which means “more fiercely”.

Comparative rule

Both of these comparative adverbs end the same. They have the -ius ending and that is my comparative adverb ending for any adverb.

Latin Superlatives

For superlative adverbs, again I'm going to show you the 2-1-2 and then the 3-3 processes.

2-1-2 adverbs to superlative adverbs

laetus, a, um, is the 2-1-2 adjective.

It becomes laete for the normal adverb.

To then make that into superlative, take the -e off the end of the adverb again, and add on -issime. laetissime - this means “most happily”.

3-3 adverbs to superlative adverbs

Again, it's the same for a 3-3 adjectives. ferox, ferocis is a 3-3 adjective, and ferociter is the adverb. “ferociously”.

Take off the -iter ending, and add on -issime. ferocissime means “very fiercely”.

Comparative and Superlative checklist

So, to sum up Comparative and superlative adverbs.

• Remove the adjective ending

• add -ius to make it a comparative

• add -issime to make it a superlative.

And that's really all there is to comparative and superlative adverbs. I hope this has been helpful! Thanks so much for joining me, and I'll see you next time on bambasbat.