Translation of adjectival phrases In Kazakh noun phrases, adjectives come before nouns and do not show any agreement with
nouns. Adjectives can also appear in separate adjective phrases. Here are some examples:
(4) The adjective alone, marked AdjP:
[AdjP beautiful ] → [AdjP әдемі]
(5) Comparative adjective phrases (English more + adjective, or adjective-[e]r); the Kazakh
translation chooses the comparative suffix “-{I}р{A}{K}”:
[AdjP more beautiful ] → [AdjP әдемірек]
(6) For superlative adjective phrases “the most + adjective” or “adjective-[e]st”, translation is
built using “ең” + adjective:
[SupP the largest ] → [SupP еңәдемі]
[SupP the most beautiful ] → [SupP ең үлкен]
As noted in §0, superlative adjective phrases have some properties of noun phrases (such as
receiving possessive morphemes when modified by a genitive phrase: the most beautiful of people → адамдардың ең әдемісі); one could say that they are treated as NPs with an implied noun.
