Appendix talk:English collateral adjectives

Collateral Adjectives, etc.

These are not irregular adjectives. Irregular adjectives are adjectives which are irregular in their derivation or inflection, such as more–most. They aren't really suppletive adjectives either, as suppletion requires that they be an exception to a general pattern of derivation, which they are not. (Good–better is suppletive.) AFAIK the only term for these pairs of words which is not incorrect is collateral adjective. kwami 07:10, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Irregular adjectives

I agree that irregular adjectives in English (or any other language) are those that are irregular in the formation of their comparative and superlative forms. How was this missed?
To demonstrate these, we MUST give the trios of their absolute, comparative, and superlative forms.
Irregular adjectives are uncommon in English, but paradoxically, there are also the most-commonly used ones. Here they are, and I cannot think of, or find, any more:
bad - worse - worst
good - better - best
few - less - least
many - more - most
much - more - most
far - farther - farthest
far - further - furthest

There really is a difference between "farther" and "further". This is because "farther" always refers to distance, which is a concrete quantity, but "further" always refers to abstract qualities such as achievement, independence, justice, learning, and service, such as in the sentence, "May I be of further service to you?"

The situation for irregular adjectives in English is sometimes directly in parallel with those in Modern German, via the English roots in Anglo-Saxon-Jute.
See these:
gut - besser - am besten (good, better, best)
viel, viele - mehr - am meisten (much/many, more, most)
[The difference between "much" and "many" in German is a difficult one for me, but there is one, and I am not going to deal with it now.]

German also has some irregular ones that are regular in English, such as:
nah, naeher, am naechsten (near, nearer, nearest)
bald, eher, am ehesten (soon, sooner, soonest)
There are several more.
The "am" in the German superlatives is a preposition, but apparently English got rid of this one a long time ago.
98.81.0.222 22:38, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by "missed". You're just repeating what we say in the article.

The difference between farther and further is found in prescriptive grammars, but is not true in general. kwami (talk) 03:45, 16 July 2012 (UTC)