- Mission 2012: My Big Fat Greek Mission
We’ve already looked at how to form comparisons in Italian, as well as a few irregular comparative forms. Today I want to suggest one more way to convey the thought, and add a few notes on usage.
The Italian language allows us imply an additional degree of a particular adjective or adverb — a certain extra-ness, if you will — by using an augmentative suffix.
A while back, we looked at augmentatives briefly, but let’s recap:
| -one | libro (book) casa (house) |
librone (heavy book) casone (big house) |
|---|---|---|
| -issimo | largo (wide) bene (well) |
larghissimo (extra-wide) benissimo (very well) |
| lentamente (slowly) | lentissimamente (super-slowly) |
Examples:
For adverbs, the -issimo gets slipped into the word, before the -mente ending:
There are several interesting ways in which superlatives can be used. Combinations of adjectives can be used for emphasis, similarly to the English construction:
In Italian, this feels less limited to me, as I can use it for descriptions I wouldn’t use in English.
You can use meno to describe something not quite superlative.
Sometimes adjectives and adverb can be expressed in a superlative manner by repeating.
Do you know any other interesting ways of using superlatives in Italian? Or maybe there are some fascinating quirks about superlatives in another language you are studying? Leave some comments and share!
