Comparative Adjectives

Types

Comparatives express a comparison between two or more entities. The comparative form of adjectives has three types:

1. comparative of superiority (e.g. “more beautiful”)
2. comparative of equality (e.g. “as beautiful as”)
3. comparative of inferiority (e.g. “less beautiful”)

The comparative of superiority is the primary degree of comparison. Therefore, when the “comparative adjective” is used alone, it refers to the superiority degree.

Construction

There are two ways to construct comparative forms: morphological (i.e. with affixes) and syntactic (i.e. with adverbs). English uses the suffix “-er” to construct a comparative form morphologically (e.g. “smaller”) and the adverb “more” to simulate a comparative form syntactically (e.g. “more beautiful”). In Persian, the comparative form is always constructed morphologically using the suffix “-tar”. There are no irregular forms and the comparative suffix is used for all adjectives.

English comparative forms that are constructed syntactically, are not truly comparative. The adverb “more” is just a means to overcome the limitation of English in using the suffix “-er” for all adjectives (e.g. “beautifuller” is ungrammatical). In Persian, it is possible to say both “zibâtar ast” (literally: She is beautifuller) and “bištar zibâ ast” (literally: She is more beautiful) but only the former is a comparative form. To illustrate it better, it is similar to the case of “smaller” vs. “more small”, where only “smaller” is truly comparative.

The Comparative of Superiority

The comparative of superiority expresses that one side of comparison has a property to a higher degree compared to the other side of comparison. The following table demonstrates how to use the suffix “-tar” to construct the comparative form of adjectives (and make a comparison of superiority).

In some references, it is stated that بهتر is the comparative form of the adjective خوب. This is not actually the case. In Persian, both به and خوب mean “good” but the latter is the one that is used normally for this sense. In contrast, “better” is normally expressed with بهتر.

Place of Comparative Adjectives

Comparative adjectives come after the noun they modify and are related to it with the genitive marker “-e” (“-ye” after vowels to resolve vowel hiatus).

• اتاق ارزانتر
  ⟨otâǧ-e arzântar⟩
  cheaper room
• خانه‌ی بزرگتر
  ⟨xâne-ye bozorgtar⟩
  bigger house
• راه‌های ساده‌تر
  ⟨râhhâ-ye sâdetar⟩
  easier ways

Comparing Two Entities

To compare “A” with “B”, the comparative form and the ablative preposition از (“az”: from) are placed in the following order:

• دشمن دانا از دوست نادان بهتر است
  ⟨došman-e dânâ az dust-e nâdân behtar ast⟩
  A wise foe is better than a foolish friend
  (literally: A wise foe than a foolish friend better is)
• برادرم از من بزرگتر است
  ⟨barâdar-am az man bozorgtar ast⟩
  My brother is older than me
  (literally: My brother than me older is)

Persian is a pro-drop language (“pro-drop” comes from “pronoun-dropping”). The conjugated forms of verbs contain the information about their grammatical person. Therefore, subject pronouns are not normally used. In the first example below, the side A of comparison i.e. او (“u”: he, she) is absent in the Persian sentence but the verb است (“ast”: is) indicates that the side A of comparison is third-person singular. Similarly, in the second example, “-and” indicates that the Side A is third-person plural i.e. آنها (“ânhâ”: they).

• از تو قویتر است
  ⟨az to ǧavitar ast⟩
  He is stronger than you
  ‏[او] از تو قویتر است
• از ما باهوشترند
  ⟨az mâ bâhuštar-and⟩
  They are smarter than us
  ‏[آنها] از ما باهوشترند

Variants of Comparative Phrases

It can be said that the side “B” of comparison is marked in ablative case using the preposition “az”. Since Persian has free word order, words can change place to indicate different emphases. Among other variants, the comparison can be expressed in the following variant as well:

• دشمن دانا بهتر از دوست نادان است
  ⟨došman-e dânâ behtar az dust-e nâdân ast⟩
  (literally: A wise foe better than a foolish friend is)
• برادرم بزرگتر از من است
  ⟨barâdar-am bozorgtar az man ast⟩
  (literally: My brother older than me is)