Qwynegold wrote:vähän - vähemmän - vähiten = a little/few - less/fewer - least(?)/fewest - The superlative form here doesn't follow the normal pattern; normal superlatives end with -in. The -en suffix is normally used on verbs and means "by the way of doing X".
Actually, since these are all adverbs, the final
-n in all of these is the instructive ending and the comparison morphemes should come before it. Thus you can break up
vähe-mmä-n as a.little-COMP-INSTR. The superlative form is not exactly suppletive but the
-ite- morpheme, which seems to be carrying the superlative meaning, is irregular and somewhat mysterious.
The verb ending I think you are talking about is the 2nd infinitive instructive, prototypically
-te-n. It should be completely unrelated to what we have here as you would have to have a verbal stem in order to be able to use it.
You encounter the same
-ite- element as in
vähiten when you build the adverbial comparison paradigm for
hyvä/paras. This actually follows the same pattern as
vähän except for using the
-in allomorph* for the instructive for the first two forms.
hyvin -
paremmin -
parhaiten
"well" - "in a better way" - "in the best way"
? - lähempänä - lähin = near/close - nearer/closer - nearest/closest - The positive form here is the noun
lähi which takes one of several possible locative cases. The comparative form seems to be NOUN-COMP-ESSIVE.
![Confused :?](./images/smilies/icon_confused.gif)
The superlative seems like a regular superlative adjective to me.
You actually mixed here together an adjectival and a locational adverb paradigm. The full paradigm of the locational adverb is
lähellä -
lähempänä -
lähimpänä
lähe-llä -
lähe-mpä-nä -
läh-impä-nä
near-ADE - near-COMP-ESS - near-SUPER-ESS
"near by" - "closer" - "closest"
This is a slight tangent but demonstrates nicely how complicated the case marking of locational adverbs can be. First of all, these words often use archaic or completely obsolete cases such as the locatively used essive here. On top of this the positive form
lähellä has to use the adessive case for exactly the same meaning with no apparent reason. Otherwise there is nothing irregular here.
Lähin comes from a adjective paradigm that in practice is lacking the positive form
Ø -
lähempi -
lähin
Ø - (sth.) nearer - (sth.) nearest
Technically these are the regular comparison forms of the noun
lähi. A full and more versatile adjective paradigm from the same root is
läheinen -
läheisempi -
läheisin
near - nearer - nearest
which is again fully regular.
kaukana - kauempana - kauimpana = far - farther - farthest - The positive is a noun with essive case, but I don't know what the lemma form would be. The comparative is NOUN-COMP-ESS. I'm not sure what's going on with the superlative.
This is actually fully regular if you don't count the fossilised use of essive as a locative. The /i/ of the superlative
-in ~ -impA eats away stem final /a æ e/ and the comparative changes stem final /a æ/ into /e/ in bisyllabic stems. And since the comparative and superlative are in weak grade they are missing the intervocalic /k/.
I don't think the stem
kauka- appears anywhere on it's own. There is the the adjective
kaukainen "(sth. that it) far away" and the derivation
kauko- which appears in compounds.
I'll also add a few examples to the list:
paljon -
enemmän -
eniten, "much" - "more" - "most"
kiva, "fun, nice" - doesn't have comparison forms and trying to build ones is awkward. This is usually explained as Russian influenced pronunciation of
hyvä, "good". You'll get the comparison forms from the full and regular paradigm
hauska -
hauskempi -
hauskin, "fun" - "more fun" - "most fun"
Kul is not a word you would use in formal speech. It does not compare, so you would have to use the comparative and superlative forms of rolig, which also means fun, instead. So this seems to be the kind of thing you're looking for.
Is that really so? I swear I've heard people using
kulare. Though, to be honest this is from people who'll also use language like
gå på leffa.
* The
-i- in the
-in instructive is formally described to be the same as the plural morpheme
-i/j-. Whether this is the real origin of the element in all of the cases is another matter.