Comparative case

The comparative case (abbreviated COMP) is a grammatical case which marks a nominal to indicate comparison with another entity through the designation of a case marker. It is not to be confused with the semblative case, a discrete grammatical case which expresses the similarity of one entity to another. The comparative case is distinct from comparative degree in that the comparative case involves morphemes appearing on nouns, while in comparative degree morphemes appear on adjectives or adverbs.

An example of a comparative case which designates similarity to something is found in Mari, where the comparative case is the suffix -la (-ла) as in (1):^[1]

Mari also uses the comparative case in regards to languages, when denoting the language a person is speaking, writing, or hearing. Then, however, the accentuation varies slightly from the standard case. Usually, the suffix is not stressed. When it is used with languages, however, it is stressed.^{[clarification needed]}

An example of the comparative case marking the noun serving as the standard of comparison comes from the Chechen suffix -l.^[2] For example, in (2) it appears on sha 'ice' in shal shiila 'cold as ice':

Similarly, in the Turkic language Sakha (Yakut), the noun serving as the standard of comparison can be marked with the comparative case suffix -TĀGAr as in (3):^[3]

Nivkh is another language with this comparative case suffix (-yk/-ak), as in (4):

This latter sense of comparative case is similar to locational comparatives,^[5] where a locational case such as the ablative marks the noun in a standard of comparison, found in Turkic languages like (5) from Uzbek:

The comparative case can also be found in Archi, a Northeast Caucasian language:^[6]

• Semblative case
• Formal case
• Equative case

• Krueger, John R. (1962). Yakut Manual. Bloomington: Indiana U Press.
• Gruzdeva, Ekaterina (1998). Nivkh. München: Lincom Europa.
• Stassen, Leon (2013). "Comparative Constructions". In Dryer, Matthew; Haspelmath, Martin (eds.). The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Archived from the original on April 1, 2022. Retrieved April 3, 2022.
• Зорина, З. Г., Г. С. Крылова, and Э. С. Якимова. Марийский язык для всех, ч. 1. Йошкар-Ола: Марийское книжное издательство, 1990;

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