Typological database of superlative constructions
Elizabeth Coppock · October 2016
Sources
Bobaljik, J. (2012). Universals in Comparative Morphology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Gorshenin, Maksym (2012). The crosslinguistics of the superlative. In Cornelia Stroh (ed.), Neues aus der Bremer Linguistikwerkstatt -- Aktuelle Themen und Projekte, 55--159. Bremen: Brockmeyer.
Legend
 |
M: morphological superlative marker |
| (e.g. tall-est) | |
 |
PERIPH: periphrastic superlative marker, in some cases optional |
| (e.g. Turkish en leziz `most delicious') | |
 |
DEF: superlative indicated via definiteness alone |
| (e.g. French la plus belle `the more beautiful') | |
 |
CMPR: no formal distinction between comparative and superlative |
| (e.g. as in Irish) | |
 |
ALL: superlative indicated with "of/than all" |
| (e.g. Russian vysĖ-e vse-x `tall-er all-of') | |
 |
ANY: superlative indicated with "of/than some/any" |
| (e.g. Khmer klang ciang kee: `strong exceed someone') | |
 |
VERY or ABS: intensifiers are used, or there is only an 'absolute' (i.e. 'elative') superlative |
| (e.g. Maori teitei rawa atu `tall indeed away') | |
 |
OTHER: either no superlative is reported, or some other strategy is used |
| (e.g. in Vietnamese where the superlative is reportedly indicated aspectually) | |
 | n/i: no information |
Notes
The categories in the legend come from Bobaljik's typology, with the exception of "ANY", which is added based on Gorshenin's work.
As suggested in the legend, the map colors conflate some of the distinctions in Bobaljik's database, such as the distinction between optional and obligatory use of a periphrastic marker. The colors thus give a categorization at a more coarse-grained level. Gorshenin's method of categorizing languages is rather different from Bobaljik's, and is too detailed to summarize here, but has been mapped onto the coarse-grained categories in the legend for display purposes. Both Bobaljik's and Gorshenin's more detailed categorizations are given in the pop-ups. (Gorshenin distinguishes between primary and secondary strategies; in the pop-ups, the first listed strategy is the primary one, and any others are secondary strategies.)
Bobaljik's Appendix A gives data on 141 languages, and Gorshenin's study includes 54 languages. Twenty languages are covered by both, so the map shows a total of 175 languages. In eight cases (Khmer, Limbu, Lango, Mandarin, Navajo, Nahuatl, Somali, and Vietnamese), the coarse-grained categorizations inferred from the two sources were in conflict. These conflicts were resolved in favor of the coarse-grained category inferred from Gorshenin's work.
You can also inspect Bobaljik and Gorsenin's databases individually.
How to cite this work
Coppock, Elizabeth, 2016, Typological database of superlative constructions, doi:10.7910/DVN/71WHWY, Harvard Dataverse, V3
Funded through the Swedish Research Council project Most and more: Quantity superlatives across languages
Made with help from the article Creating An Interactive Map With Leaflet and OpenStreetMap