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102
Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to greet you as our guest of honour. There is nothing more
refreshing than a good swim.
The parallelism of functions between the two forms of comparison (the comparative degree and the
superlative degree) in such and like examples is unquestionable.
As we see, the elative superlative, though it is not the regular superlative in the grammatical sense, is still a
kind of a specific, grammatically featured construction. This grammatical specification distinguishes it from
common elative constructions which may be generally defined as syntactic combinations of an intensely high
estimation. E.g.: an extremely important amendment; a matter of exceeding urgency, quite an unparalleled
beauty, etc.
Thus, from a grammatical point of view, the elative superlative, though semantically it is "elevated", is
nothing else but a degraded superlative, and its distinct featuring mark with the analytical superlative degree is
the indefinite article: the two forms of the superlative of different functional purposes receive the two different
marks (if not quite rigorously separated in actual uses) by the article determination treatment.
It follows from the above that the possibility of the most-combination to be used with the indefinite article
cannot in any way be demonstrative of its non-grammatical character, since the functions of the two superlative
combinations in question, the elative superlative and the genuine superlative, are different.
Moreover, the use of the indefinite article with the synthetic superlative in the degraded, elative function is
not altogether impossible, though somehow such a possibility is bluntly denied by certain grammatical manuals.
Cf:.
He made a last lame effort to delay the experiment; but Basil was impervious to suggestion (J. Vance).
But there is one more possibility to formally differentiate the direct and elative functions of the synthetic
superlative, namely, by using the zero article with the superlative. This latter possibility is noted in some
grammar books [Ganshina, Vasilevskaya, 85]. Cf.:
Suddenly I was seized with a sensation of deepest regret.
However, the general tendency of expressing the superlative elative meaning is by using the analytical
form. Incidentally, in the Russian language the tendency of usage is reverse: it is the synthetic form of the
Russian superlative that is preferred in rendering the elative function. Cf.: слушали с живейшим интересом;
повторялась скучнейшая история; попал в глупейшее положение, etc.
§
7. Let us examine now the combinations of less/least with the basic form of the adjective.
As is well known, the general view of these combinations definitely excludes them from any connection
with categorial analytical forms. Strangely enough, this rejectionist view of the "negative degrees of
comparison" is even taken to support, not to reject the morphological interpretation of the more/most-
combinations.
The corresponding argument in favour of the rejectionist interpretation consists in pointing out the functional
parallelism existing between the synthetic degrees of comparison and the more/most-combinations
accompanied by their complementary distribution, if not rigorously pronounced (the different choice of the
forms by different syllabo-phonetic forms of adjectives). The less/least-combinations, according to this view,
are absolutely incompatible with the synthetic degrees of comparison, since they express not only different, but
opposite meanings [Khaimovich, Rogovskaya, 77-78].
Now, it does not require a profound analysis to see that, from the grammatical point of view, the formula
"opposite meaning" amounts to ascertaining the categorial equality of the forms compared. Indeed, if two
forms express the opposite meanings, then they can only belong to units of the same general order. And we
cannot but agree with BA. Ilyish's thesis that "there seems to be no sufficient reason for treating the two sets of
phrases in different ways, saying that 'more difficult' is an analytical form, while 'less difficult' is not" [Ilyish,
60]. True, the cited author takes this fact rather as demonstration that both types of constructions should
equally be excluded from the domain of analytical forms, but the problem of the categorial status of the more
most-combinations has been analysed above.
Thus, the less/least-combinations, similar to the more/most-combinations, constitute specific forms of
comparison, which may be called forms of "reverse comparison". The two types of forms cannot be
syntagmatically combined in one and the same form of the word, which shows the unity of the category of
comparison. The whole category includes not three, but five different forms, making up the two series -
respectively, direct and reverse. Of these, the reverse series of comparison (the reverse superiority degrees, or
"inferiority degrees", for that matter) is of far lesser importance than the direct one, which evidently can be
explained by semantic reasons. As a matter of fact, it is more natural to follow the direct model of comparison