# Icelandic: Strong superlative adjectives



## Silver_Biscuit

Hi everyone,

I have a question about strong superlative adjectives - specifically, when would I use them? Maybe something is slipping my mind but I can't think of an example in English where I would want to say "_a_ biggest [something]" or "_a_ best [something]" rather than "_the _biggest" etc. By definition, there can be only one biggest, best, fastest, etc, so the indefinite article is never appropriate (I think...).

Am I correct in thinking that to say something like "He is the tallest man here" I would use the weak form of the superlative, i.e. "Hann er hæsti maðurinn hérna"? Can anyone give me an example of when you would say "hæstur maður"?

Thanks


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## sindridah

You can not use the weak form of the superlative without using vowel as the last letter. 
Weak declension indicates something definite, 

skemmtileg*a* konan ( weak )
skemmtileg kona ( strong )

So there is impossible to have it weak the way you want to say it. 

Hope I was on the right course


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## Silver_Biscuit

Those aren't the superlative. Superlatives (the dictionary tells me "efsta stig") are words like best, worst, fastest, strongest, smallest, youngest... Like if you had "góður - betur - bestur", *bestur* is the superlative.
What I want to know is: When is it possible to use the strong declension of a superlative adjective? 
To take your example, _skemmtilegust kona_ would be the superlative form in the strong declension. Would you ever say or write _skemmtilegust kona_?


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## sindridah

Yeah I know  Ok second guess, You're meaning this -sta ending thing.

skemmtilegasta konan.

skemmtilegasta
ógeðslegasta
fyndnasta
sætasta and so on ?


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## Tjahzi

Ahh, how interesting.

When I had read your post, I realized that your question is related to, and in fact explains and answers, an interesting issue that really confused me a couple of years ago.
I was well aware of the fact that Swedish had both strong and weak comparison patterns for adjectives depending on definiteness (like Icelandic). However, I had also concluded that Swedish made the very interesting distinction between predicative and attributive usage, but only for superlatives. At the time, I didn't really manage to explain it and eventually dropped the case, but when I read your post here, it reminded me of it and I saw it from another perspective, and came to the following conclusion.

(The following should be understood in relation to the chart below. All that is said is valid for both Icelandic and Swedish.)

Basically, there are (mainly) two choices to make when using an adjective: _Is it definite?_ and _Is it attributive or predicative?_ 
(More about attribute and predicative adjectives here.)

The key issue here is that only _definite attributive _adjectives are weak* (not just _definite_), the rest are strong*. As such, when comparing (_positive_, since this is obviously the "pure" form) adjectives in terms of strong/weak, one normally compares the _definite attributive _to the _indefinite __attributive_, just seeing the definiteness as the influencing factor. However, since, as you have concluded (and I too, three years ago, though without realizing it), there can't be any such thing as an _indefinite attributive __superlative_. However, there can be both _definite _as well as _indefinite __predicative__ superlatives_ which must then be strong*, based on the previous conclusion that _"_only _definite attributive _adjectives are weak*"_._

Regarding the chart: Swedish/Icelandic/English. I'm not 100% about the Icelandic entires, please correct me Sindri. Also, if you substitute the noun in the _indefinite attribute_ column with a pronoun, it will sound much more natural.

(I'm aware of that you didn't ask for a typological analysis in response, but at least I answered the question... )


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## Silver_Biscuit

sindridah said:


> Yeah I know  Ok second guess, You're meaning this -sta ending thing.
> 
> skemmtilegasta konan.
> 
> skemmtilegasta
> ógeðslegasta
> fyndnasta
> sætasta and so on ?



Já nákvæmlega. But those are the weak forms. The strong forms do exist (skemmtilegastur, ógeðslegastur, fyndnastur, sætastur), but are they just a grammatical oddity or would you ever actually use them?


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## Silver_Biscuit

Tjahzi said:


> Ahh, how interesting.
> 
> When I had read your post, I realized that your question is related to, and in fact explains and answers, an interesting issue that really confused me a couple of years ago. [...]



Erm, sorry to be dim, but I don't entirely understand this. Couldn't view the chart for some reason, which probably isn't helping. 
Are you saying that you _don't_ think that all these adjectival forms which _do_ exist have a purpose? I don't understand why there would even be a table for them if there wasn't something, but for the life of me I can't think of when I would need them. Like if I link to the declension page for _góður_, there's a whole table for *Efsta stig*, *sterk beyging*, with the masculine nominative being _bestur_. _Bestur_ can't just be a completely pointless word, surely?

Edit: Wait, do you mean that you would write something like "Hann er bestur", even if you couldn't write, "Hann er bestur maður"?


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## Gavril

Tjahzi said:


> However, there can be both _definite _as well as _indefinite __predicative__ superlatives_ which must then be weak, based on the previous conclusion that _"_only _definite attributive _adjectives are strong"_._[/SIZE]



I looked at the chart, but I don't see how your sentence above agrees with it: don't you mean that predicative superlatives (whether indefinite or definite) must be *strong* (as _stærstur_ is), based on the conclusion that only definite attributive adjectives are *weak* (as _stærsti_ is)?


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## Tjahzi

Sorry. What I'm saying is that these forms _do _have a purpose and _do _exist, you have just been looking in the wrong place (in the syntactic chart ).

The problem is that English is not fully consequent so if you don't go through the chart (that is, look where the forms/structures _should_ be, rather than just gather all forms/structures that you have and analyze them (I'm sorry I'm about to get carried away again...)). 

Anyhow, the simple answer is that yes, there is a use, for instance in the phrase _hann/maðurinn er stærstur_. If you want to _understand_ it, I'd go for the chart. 

EDIT:

My apologies. I have indeed mixed them up.  I hope that makes it less confusing.

Corrected. Thank you for proofreading.


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## Tjahzi

Just to make sure, here's an attempt to be slightly less ambiguous. 

To understand this issue, one must understand when inflect the adjectives strongly and when to inflect it weakly. To understand that, one must understand a little about how adjectives are used.

The two most common usages for adjectives are attributive and predicative. I tend to think of them as "the normal usage" and "the one used with _to be_", respectively. In English, this can be illustrated by the difference between the _possessive adjective _"_my_" and the _possessive pronoun _"_mine_": _My book is mine_. Here, _my_ is an example of attributive usage and _mine _of predicative. 

In Icelandic, adjectives governed by definite nouns are weak if they are used attributively: _stóri bíllinn, _but not if used predicatively: _bíllinn er stór._ (_My book is mine_. - _Stóri bíllinn er stór_.)
If the noun is indefinite, the adjective is always strong: _stór bíll_, _(einn) bíll er stór_. 
Having concluded this, we must rewrite the previous rule: _An adjective is inflected weakly if the noun is definite AND the adjective is used attributively._ 

That said, let's proceed to the superlatives. We can easily generate a weak adjective through the _att. def._ construction which gives us _st__ærsti bíllinn_. 
While the_ att. __indef__. __st__ærstur bíll_ would probably be ungrammatical in most languages, we can create both a fine _pred. def._ in form of_ bíllinn er st__ærstur, _as well as a slightly less functional _pred. indef_:_ bíll er st__ærstur,_ which is unnatural, though not impossible (_bíll er st__ærstur ef allir aðrir eru minni)_. 
(I can think of constructions in which the _ att. __indef__. _would be possible, but let's skip that for now.)

However, the confusing part for you is obviously the fact that the most functional of the forms which would take a strongly inflected adjective is the _pred. def, _which is ignored since the original rule stipulated that _"an adjective is declined weakly if governed by a definite noun"_. Additionally, the least unnatural of the other two, the _pred. indef_. is completely ungrammatical until you add a definite article: _a car is the biggest_, which makes the construction seem definite. 

To sum up, if you use the above principles you can create phrases containing weak superlatives, but avoid going through English. 
And if that was just all gibberish as well, please tell and I will make a better attempt to explain it. 
Also Sindri, if yo read this, please check everything I've written in Icelandic for grammar and other errors (you don't have to know _why_ it's wrong, just _if _it is ). 
I'm no way an Icelandic speaker, just an amateur linguist. 
---
Obviously I'm having a really hard time telling _strong_ and _weak_ apart, but I'm quite sure I'm right concerning _attributive/pedicative _and _definite/indefinite_, but if not, please tell.


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## Zluim

Don't you mean the other way round?


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## Tjahzi

Hahahah, I do.


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## Zluim

Tjahzi said:


> (I can think of constructions in which the _att__. __indef__. _would be possible, but let's skip that for now.)


 
But let's not skip it altogether. In Norwegian, this is where you find strong superlative + indefinite noun (but no article):

Han har tykkest frakk.
Hun har kortest skjørt.
Filmen med størst vekt på det estetiske gjorde sterkest inntrykk på meg.

Are such constructions possible in Icelandic?


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## Alxmrphi

> The key issue here is that only _definite attributive _adjectives are weak* (not just _definite_), the rest are strong*.





> In Icelandic, adjectives governed by definite nouns are weak if they are used attributively:
> [...]
> Having concluded this, we must rewrite the previous rule: _An adjective is inflected weakly if the noun is definite AND the adjective is used attributively._


Good post, even I found it quite difficult to follow at times but I'll blame that on the tiredness . You've got the generalisation down, but it's not completely watertight (I'm not talking about just superlatives here, but adjectives in general).

You use the weak adjective to give a restrictive meaning to something, so if both speakers understand their is only one of these entities in the world (let's take the example of *the sky*) then you can use an adjective, use it attributively, in a definite form, but use the _strong declension_ (even though it is definite) for the adjective (instead of the expected weak one).

So, here's an example:

*Ég horfði  upp í bláan himininn*
*Ég horfði á bláa bílinn

*What's going on in the first example is, to use a weak adjective means to give a restrictive reading of the noun, basically implying there is more than one sky, when it's obvious this isn't true, so you can have a definite article and strong adjective, when it is also used attributively (Ég horfði upp í blá*an* himin*inn*), while the normal way is the second example, and means looking at the blue car (and not the red one).

You can also see this with body parts as well, like.. let's say *a nose*, most people only have one of those  Let's say you were talking about a clown's nose or something, if you want to say "the red nose", there's no "_other nose_" so again the weak declension is semantically odd, you are not specifying this and not another nose on the person, so it requires the strong declension of the adjective, whether it's definite or not.

Rautt nefið
Rauða nefið

To quote an Icelandic Linguist at Háskoli Íslands "_The weak form of the adjective would imply that the person had more than one nose_".

Last thing to note, the restrictive meaning of the weak adjective only works when the definite article comes after the noun, if you use the free-standing article (i.e. hinn) and weak attrib. adjective + noun, there's no restrictive meaning here.

Just thought I'd complicate the discussion a little bit


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## Gavril

Alxmrphi said:


> You use the weak adjective to give a restrictive meaning to something, so if both speakers understand their is only one of these entities in the world (let's take the example of *the sky*) then you can use an adjective, use it attributively, in a definite form, but use the _strong declension_ (even though it is definite)



Question: does "definite/indefinite form of an adjective" have any meaning in Icelandic when differentiated from the strong/weak distinction? For a noun, you can speak unambiguously about the definite form (i.e., the form containing the suffixed article), but I can't think of any corresponding formal contrast in adjectives apart from the strong/weak contrast (which only imperfectly corresponds to indefinite/definite, as I'm learning from this thread).



> Last thing to note, the restrictive meaning of the weak adjective only works when the definite article comes after the noun, if you use the free-standing article (i.e. hinn) and weak attrib. adjective + noun, there's no restrictive meaning here.



Interesting -- so, what would be the semantic difference between _hið rauða nef_, _rauða nefið_ and _rautt nefið_?


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## Alxmrphi

Gavril said:


> Question: does "definite/indefinite form of an adjective" have any meaning in Icelandic when differentiated from the strong/weak distinction? For a noun, you can speak unambiguously about the definite form (i.e., the form containing the suffixed article), but I can't think of any corresponding formal contrast in adjectives apart from the strong/weak contrast (which only imperfectly corresponds to indefinite/definite, as I'm learning from this thread).



I don't think that'd be technically correct, because definitiveness comes from articles and they are connected to nouns rather than adjectives. As we've seen here an adjective can be weak or strong and the noun be definite or not. So like you said (it's the same for me, too), besides the strong weak (and gender/number) distinctions, there's not one that says whether it is definite or not.



> Interesting -- so, what would be the semantic difference between _hið rauða nef_, _rauða nefið_ and _rautt nefið_?


The last one would be considered the most normal and correct (my book says), it says the second to last one is semantically odd and marks it as such, giving the implication of a restrictive meaning (i.e. the red nose, not the other colour nose), and the first example would be fine I imagine, because the weak declension on a definite noun with a free-standing article doesn't contain the restrictive meaning, but it'd be considered a little bit more formal.


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## Alxmrphi

If you go to Amazon and search for "The Syntax of Icelandic", look for a version with a preview and look at pages 4-5, where all this is explained. I think you'll find it interesting.


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## kepulauan

> Can anyone give me an example of when you would say "hæstur maður"?


Maybe in poetry and rare idioms, but since there are missing words and oddities, it would be unclear if modern examples (that I don't have) would actually qualify as being indefinite.

Try searching the net for "mestur maður" (include the quotes) and you'll see where the indefinite possibility can be found "in action".



> Wait, do you mean that you would write something like "Hann er bestur",  even if you couldn't write, "Hann er bestur maður"?


Yes, the table can't be skipped because the former example is everyday language.



> Han har tykkest frakk.
> Hun har kortest skjørt.
> Filmen med størst vekt på det estetiske gjorde sterkest inntrykk på meg.
> 
> Are such constructions possible in Icelandic?


I can't think of any example. It is abnormal but certainly doesn't feel totally wrong. Germanic languages have so many tools to say the same thing; some are bound to be skipped.



> so, what would be the semantic difference between _hið rauða nef_, _rauða  nefið_ and _rautt nefið_?
> 
> 
> 
> The last one would be considered the most normal and correct (my book  says), it says the second to last one is semantically odd and marks it  as such, giving the implication of a restrictive meaning
Click to expand...

Freely exchanging them is _very_ forgiving, almost regardless of cirumstances. The middle version is actually more "normal" than the last. In fact, I received an email yesterday with the last one in it and I found it a bit strange to read (but in no way inappropriate).


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