Greek comparatives and superlatives

The language will have roots derived en masse from classical Greek. Caca - bad, cala - good, agatha - good, micra - small, polla - many. Adverbs would probably be made in the same simple method. Similar to Latin, Greek had adverbial method of producing comparatives and superlatives with the following additions:

mala - very, mallon - more, malista - most

These compare to the forms derived from Latin: magne - very, magis - more, maxime - most.

Now mala means "bad" from the Latin root, it need not be used if it's too confusing. It sorta sounds like it would make good use in slang (Tauto es mala bona! - that's "hella" good).

Beyond that, there is a Greek method of adding suffixes for forming comparatives (-teros) and superlatives (-tatos). These will be confusing to incorporate, but rather Greek roots will have the same option to use the comparative ending -iore, I guess. This may end up with odd forms. I'm thinking rather that maybe there's no need to maintain the -iore ending except in those exceptions of Latin adjectives derived from prepositions (superiore, inferiore, exteriore, interiore, posteriore, priore), and the irregular forms meliore, pejore, majore, minore, and plure.

So the comparative adverbs: magis, plus, mallon. And the superlative adverbs: maxime, malista.

Comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs

A simple method of forming comparatives and superlatives may be the use of specific adverbs, such as magis and maxime, which Latin uses already. To express "less" and "least," one can use minus and minime.

magis pulchra - more beautiful

maxime sacra - most sacred

minus bona - worse

minime acre - least sharp

(Should I also allow the possibility for plus to be used instead of magis? One would have a nice plus/minus dichotomy.)

With the above adverb, we will not need specific endings such as -ior or -issimus/-rrimus/-llimus in most cases. The endings for the superlative ( -issimus/-rrimus/-llimus) can be complicated because they change depending on the root, and it's fitting for this language to not require it. However, the comparative ending -ior is fairly standard, and I personally would keep it as an option. In this language, the ending would be -iore.

Now there are some latin exceptions, such as the following comparatives based on prepositions. Here, both the comparative and superlative forms could be acceptable, because many of the superlative forms have independent root forms.

citeriore, citima - nearer, nearest from citra (on this side)

ulteriore, ultima - farther, last from ultra (beyond)

inferiore, infima/ima - lower, lowest from infra (below), infero (low being)

propiore, proxima - nearer, next from prope (near)

superiore, suprema/summa - upper, highest from supra (over), supero (high being)

posteriore, postrema - latter/next, hindmost from post (behind, after), postero (follower, descendant)

priore, prima - previous, first from pre- (before).

interiore, intima - inner, inmost from inter (between)

exteriore, extrema - outer, outermost from extra (outside of), extero (foreigner).

There are some irregular adjectives I'd like to maintain for the roots they bring:

meliore, optima - better, best from bona (good)

pejore, pessima - worse, worst from mala (bad)

majore, maxima - greater, greatest from magna (great)

minore, minima - less, least from parva (small)

plure, plurima - more, most from multa (much, many)

Adverbs

The language would likely adopt all single-form adverbs such as mox (soon), numquam (never), semper (always), iam (already), non (not), ibi (there), hic (here), igitur (therefor), and the like.

Forming adverbs from adjectives, however, can be a complicated endeavor. In Latin, first and second declension adjectives (which in this language would end in an -a) would be formed by changing the ending to an -e (longa -> longe meaning far). But third declension adjectives (which in this language would end in -e) would be formed by adding -iter as an ending (grave -> graviter meaning heavily).

My goal is to reduce grammatical complexity while maintaining lexical root diversity. In the case of adverbs from adjectives, there is one lexical root and the grammatical division may be an additional headache. I'd prefer one simple rule.

That rule could be to change the ending to an -e in all cases. Of course this would make adverbs like longe (far), but adjectives ending with -e would simply not change. I personally don't think that's a major problem though. Many languages don't have adverbs and get by on adjectives alone. Take the example below:

Latin: Nos egimus audacter - We acted bravely. In this language, for simplicity, the only form available would be audace. So the following: Nos egi audace - "We acted brave." In english there's a difference there, but there need not be one in this language.

Also: me ivi ibi felice "I went there happy" is close enough to "I went there happily."

So in this language, it will be sufficient to use the adjective form to try to express an adverbial concept. If the adjective ends in an -a, I suppose it would be possible to change the ending to an -e if the user would like to specify, but it shouldn't be otherwise necessary. Also, I suppose there could be an optional rule to add -mente or -modo to suggest the word is used as an adverb, but only when necessary! I would continue to maintain a hyphenated word, so the roots are apparent. The use of -mente is the development we see in romance languages such as French and Spanish.

felice-mente (with a happy mind, happily)

felice-modo (in a happy way, happily)

libera-mente (with a free mind, freely)

libera-modo (in a free way, freely)

I don't think it would be a harm maintaining one irregular adverb such as bene (well) but bona (good) could also work.

Te feci bene - you did well.

Te feci bona - you did good - acceptable

The rule could be bona -> bene instead of bone.