Comparison of participles

Question

Participles behave much like adjectives. Do they also have comparative and superlative forms? They are easy enough to form: ferentior, dicturissimus.

More precisely, are any comparatives or superlatives of participles attested in classical Latin literature? Some participles have started a new life as independent adjectives. I prefer to leave participles that are often used as adjectives out — if the distinction is sensible. One could argue that comparison always requires treating a participle as an adjective, but I would prefer to see cases where this treatment is ad hoc rather than widespread. I leave it to you to judge what counts as adjective and what as participle; I hope the intent of my question is clear enough.

I can fathom use contexts for compared participles. Using my two examples from above, I might want to describe someone who carries more cargo than his friend or someone who is going to give an awfully long speech.

(I had used latus as an example of a participle which has become an adjective, bud fdb indicated in a comment that they are in fact etymologically separate words.)

Answer 1

We can semantically distinguish an adjective or adverb from a participle. Adjectives and adverbs have no dynamic or temporal force. They cannot take an accusative or clause as their object. They merely describe what they modify. Only such descriptions can take degrees of comparison.

Participles that retain any of their dynamic force cannot be made comparative or superlative. In fact, once a participle became commonly used as a simple adjective or substantive, the Romans seem to have (almost?) completely stopped using even the positive form dynamically. Only vary rarely will you find amans, sciens, or sapiens with an accusative or clausal object, despite amo and scire being rather common verbs.

This state of affairs seems to be implied in A&G 494. Note that participles "may be compared," but only when they've become "complete adjectives."

494. The present and perfect participles are sometimes used as attributives, nearly like adjectives. ...

a. Participles often become complete adjectives, and may be compared, or used as nouns.

Gildersleeve and Lodge 88 puts it similarly:

88. Participles used as adjectives are subject also to the same laws of comparison [as other adjectives -- Kingshorsey]: as, amans, loving, amantior, amantissimus; apertus, open, apertior, apertissimus.

Answer 2

I used corpus searches to constrain the possibility of participle comparison. Here are the observations:

• Superlative of future participle: The only words with -turissim- are forms of maturissimus. No hits with -surissim- or -xurissim-.
• Comparative of future participle: Searching for -turior- returns a number of forms of maturior, one promunturiorum, one Sturiorum, and one saturiorque. Searching for the neuter -turius gives names, vulturius, and a whole lot of maturius. The name Iturius looks like a compared participle, but is most likely completely unrelated. The searches for -surior-, -surius, -xurior-, and -xurius produce one candidate: luxurior. This could potentially be parsed as a compared future participle, but the verb luxuriari sounds more likely.
• The past participle is too tedious to search, as there are a lot of adjectives ending in -tus/-sus/-xus. There are a number of candidates, like rectissime and apertissimum. I actually think apertissimum makes a decent case, although one can always ask to what extent these participles have become normal adjectives.
• A number of present participles have become adjectives, and perhaps one should not read compared forms of diligens as compared participles of diligere. I am less sure about confidentior. I searched for -ntior- and -ntius, and they both return a large number of hits. The issue is deciding which ones are "pure participles" and which ones "adjectivized participles". I had hard time deciding that; perhaps accusative objects or other things that usually go with a verb would be a good indicator.

There is way too much noise when searching for anything but future participles. I found a number of adjectivized participles, but also things that one can regard as genuinely compared participles. (The borderline seems arbitrary.) I feel that Cato's locus apertissimus makes a decent case in support of comparison. However, my two best hits apertissimus and confidentior do not have anything to identify them clearly enough as participles as opposed to adjectives — which is not unusual at all for participles in the first place.

I would say that comparison of participles is possible, but tends to be most common with participles that have solidified their status as an adjective.

I would be happy to see more robust answers if anyone has stronger evidence. Examples of participles compared with magis and maxime would also be quite interesting.

Answer 3

It seems to be difficult to distinguish participles from nouns/adjectives. This is a problem, because it seems clear that some adjectives with the form of participles have comparative forms.

The idea that the use of the comparative form implies that a participle has been converted to an adjective does seem to be out there:

In order to distinguish a noun from a participle the criterion of comparison can be used: a noun can have a comparative (amantior), a participle cannot (*docentior).

("Declension of the Latin present participle in connection with its syntactico-semantic use", Hendrik Christiaan Walvoort, 2018, §3)

I'm unsure about the reliability of this criterion.

Answer 4

Pliny, writing of the pyramids of Gizeh in Naturalis Historia XXXVI: sed multo spectatior [comparative degree of positive spectatus, specto's perfect passive participle], "but much more splendid". That's all I got. It seems to me that confident stylists of Latin Antiquity would, not promiscuously, but neither stunningly rarely, essay to supply, subinde, degrees of comparison for participial adjectives, the coinage of which, less on the basis of the formalized grammatical armature than consonant with each author's sense of license conferred by skill in letters, resulting in many of the constructed inflections approaching the status of hapax legomenon.