Exercise Page 437

Exercise Page 442

HINT: The words of the exercise verses from the Bhagavad Gītā should be reordered in order to facilitate translation. If you are having trouble working out the anvaya or word order, you can download the suggested word here.

Comparative and Superlative Adjectives

A pair of suffixes can be added to an adjective to transform it to its comparative or superlative degree. The comparative degree is 'more ADJECTIVE' (e.g. 'more big' or 'bigger'), and the superlative degree is 'most ADJECTIVE' (e.g. 'most big' or 'biggest'). There are two pairs of suffixes used in Sanskrit:

-तर/-तम

• Can be added directly to almost any adjective (or noun)
• Do not cause any change to the adjective (or noun)
• Decline like देव, फल, and कन्या

-(ई)यस्/इष्ठ

• Are added only to a few adjectives, which do not use -तर/तम
• Cause several changes to the adjective
• Have their own declination pattern for masculine and neuter forms (see Page 433), and ई is added to form the feminine, which declines like नदी