Lessons · 14 of 18

Describing things

Adjectives never change before a noun, compare with a from-form, and can carry the to-be endings themselves.

Adjectives are the easiest words in the language: put one in front of a noun and you are done. It never changes — ullu üy "a big house", ariw kız "a beautiful girl", no agreement, no endings.

More, most, very

• ullu — big
• ullurak — bigger
• em ullu — the biggest
• bek ullu — very big

To compare two things you usually don't even need ullurak — the from-form from lesson 11 carries the "than" all by itself: ol menden ulludu — "he is bigger than me", literally "from-me he is big."

The ending is thoroughly ordinary — our sources carry it on dozens of adjectives: uzunurak "longer", terenirek "deeper", kengirek "wider", köbürek "more". Note the last two: a stem that ends in a hard letter softens it before the ending, so ak gives ağırak and cuwuk gives cuwuğurak — the same softening you have met on every other vowel-initial ending.

The adjective as the whole sentence

That sentence hides the second trick: ulludu is the adjective wearing the to-be endings — the same ones from kalaysa? in the greetings. Any adjective can do this:

• men ulluma — I am big
• sen ullusa — you are big
• ol ulludu — he / she / it is big
• biz ullubuz — we are big
• siz ullusuz — you all are big
• ala ulludula — they are big

And to deny it, lesson 5's tüyül takes the endings instead: ullu tüyülme — "I am not big." Every adjective page shows these tables for its own word, with the opposites one click away.