Tags · Domain Comparison Setting one thing against another for degree: taller than, as tall as, the tallest. Topics with this tag Pattern How does a language say that two things match in degree? English needs two little words for it: as tall as her mother. The commonest arrangement worldwide uses just one — French grande comme sa mère, Turkish annesi kadar uzun — and a smaller group puts the two people together and calls them equally tall. A few make a verb do the work, so that she reaches her mother in height. Across a 119-language survey, one arrangement is virtually unattested wherever the standard stands as a phrase of its own: a degree word with the standard left bare. ComparisonAdpositionSyncretism Equal Comparison → More in this facet Existence 4Location 2Possession 5Alienability 1Negation 4Indefiniteness 1Quantification 2Perception 2Obligation 1Tense and aspect 1Modality 1Device operation 1Grammatical relations 2Benefaction 1Spatial relation 1