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Hi, please help me.&gt;The use of even makes the meaning of the quality being compared inherent rather than relative:&gt;You're there for a semester. It's not just three months. It may be even longer than that.&gt;(speaker considers a semester, i.e. six months, to be a long time) (Cambridge Grammar of English)I don't understand the structure of the red sentence and the meaning.

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

The use of even

makes

the meaning
of the quality (which is) being compared

inherent
rather than
relative.
_____________

When you use even, you indicate that you consider the meaning (of the quality you are talking about) to be an inherent meaning, not a relative meaning.

[Frankly, I'm not really sure what that means myself! The example didn't make a lot of sense to me either!]

CJ

YoungCalifornian · Answer

I don't know how to address the part of your question regarding structure, other than to say it is correct. Try to appreciate that attempts to give precise explanations for somewhat abstract concepts can lead to definitions that are hard to understand even for practiced English speakers (as you will see).

As for the statement's meaning, I will try to break it down further.

First, you need to know the distinction between "inherent" and "relative". "Inherent" essentially means permanent or constant. "Relative" means in comparison to something. For instance, to say how tall someone is (for example, 1.5 meters) is to describe an inherent characteristic. To say that they are taller than someone else is to describe a relative characteristic.

The word "longer" is a relative adjective; that is, it invites comparison. The statement in red is saying that by adding "even" in front of "longer", the characteristic being described is now inherent instead of relative. To be honest, I'm not sure I agree.

A quick note: the rest of this post has nothing to do with the meaning of the statement. It is just my analysis of its truth.

It seems to me that adding the word "even" simply places more emphasis on the adjective "longer". The sense of relativity is not lost, because the amount of time being described is still being contrasted with another. Remove the word "even" and the meaning does not change, only the measure of relative length in the opinion of the speaker. In other words, the degree is changed.

>(speaker considers a semester, i.e. six months, to be a long time)

The author of this statement seems to conclude that the speaker simply means that a semester is a "long time" irrespective of its length compared to three months. A "long time" is indeed inherent characteristic/quality, as that phrase offers no direct comparison with any other length of time. Of course, that's not literally what the speaker said. I don't see how the word "longer" cannot be relative.

The only way "even longer" can be described as an inherent quality to me is if you look at the possible amount of time the person being spoken to will stay "there" in three degrees: three months, a semester, or an unknown amount of time. By saying that the unknown amount of time is "even longer" (than a semester) you have made clear that it is inherently longer than three months (as a semester is about six months). The problem is that the unknown amount of time is still relatively/comparably longer than a semester!

Overall, the whole example strikes me as poorly phrased and poorly explained.

Tashiro · Answer

Thank you very much for the detailed explanations.
Does "inherent rather than relative" modify "quality"?

CalifJim · Answer

tashiroDoes "inherent rather than relative" modify "quality"?

No. Note the pattern of indentation in my diagram of the structure.

If "inherent rather than relative" modified "quality" you would have a missing piece in the grammatical pattern to make (something) (somehow).

to make the explanation clear
to make the meaning obvious
to make the children happy
to make the meaning inherent
to make the meaning relative
to make your friend sad

CJ

Tashiro · Answer

Thank you for the quick reply.

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