Equal, more, most — and the ka- exclamation that has been waiting since beginner lesson 15
Forman separates them cleanly:
Equal — two noun phrases share a quality to the same degree. The descriptive takes mising-, and both phrases are ing-marked.
Unequal — X has the quality more than Y. X is ing-marked, the descriptive comes first (with or without mas), and Y is king-marked (with or without kesa).
Misingawig lang Tali ampo i Seni.
Taliq and Zeny have the same appearance.
Misingragul lang Salong ampo pa i Miding.
Salong and Miding are equally big.
Look at the second one: mising- + dagul ("big") gives misingragul — with d → r, because the prefix ends in a vowel. Lesson 5's rule, applied without comment.
ampo ("and") joins the two compared items — the same word you met in the beginner course as ampong.
This is the construction you will use constantly.
Masakit ing Kapampangan keng Tagalog.
Kapampangan is more difficult than Tagalog.
Magastus ing pikaburian keng pusitara.
The preferred way is more expensive than eloping.
Ining lubid a ini, mas makaba kesa keta.
This rope here, it's longer than that one.
Atin yang upaya mas labis kekayu.
He has a power greater than yours.
| Element | Status |
|---|---|
| the descriptive, first | required |
| mas before it | optional — from Spanish más |
| king/keng on the standard | required |
| kesa before the standard | optional — also from Spanish |
Lesson 3 listed everything king covers, ending with "one of two things compared." Here it is in use.
The logic is the same as English "compared to" — the standard of comparison is a kind of oblique reference point, and Kapampangan marks all such things with king.
Note atin in that last example — the HAVE form, again confirming the distinction the beginner course was corrected on.
The beginner course gave you peka-:
pekamasanting — most beautiful
pekamaragul — biggest
Forman treats superlative descriptive predication as its own section, alongside the comparatives. In practice the everyday superlative is peka-, and pinaka- is also heard under Tagalog influence.
Beginner lesson 15 taught ka- as turning an adjective into a quality noun: malagu → kalagu, "beauty." That was true but incomplete. The same ka- forms a whole predication type — Forman's emphatic descriptive.
Kasanting na ning gayak king dalan!
How beautiful the decorations in the street are!
Kaunang danum ning kabayu!
How thirsty the horse was for water!
Katas mu! — You're so tall!
Kanyaman ning makaduyan! — How delightful to be in a hammock!
Kasanting ning mamialung keti! — How nice to play here!
Kapormalan mu naman! — Well, you're so very formal!
The pattern: ka- + descriptive root, then the thing described in a ning-marked phrase, or a pronoun.
Kasanting is ka- + santing, the root inside masanting. Katas is ka- + tas ("height"), the root inside matas ("tall"). Strip the ma-, add ka-, and you have an exclamation.
This one prefix has now appeared as: a quality noun (beginner 15), a stative with causative force (lesson 6), a recent-completion marker (lesson 7), a relationship former in kapatad (lesson 6), and now an exclamation.
These are not five coincidences. They are one morpheme doing related work, and noticing that is a large part of what it means to know a language rather than a list of its words.
Is mas required? No — Forman marks it optional, and Masakit ing Kapampangan keng Tagalog has no mas at all. The king does the comparative work.
Is using Spanish borrowings lazy? No. mas and kesa have been in the language for centuries and appear in Forman's own elicited data.
How do I say "less than"? Usually by reversing the comparison, or with a negated equal comparative. Kapampangan prefers restating.
That completes B1. You now have the whole predication system — actor, goal, beneficiary, locative, instrumental, stative, recent-completion — plus the sound rules that let you read unfamiliar forms, verb chaining, attributive syntax and comparison.
B2 turns from the clause to the text: particles, connected discourse, relative clauses, register, the writing systems and the literature.
Next: Non-Verbal Predication in Full.