A syntactic “illusion” named for this term is exemplified by what Mario Montalbetti called “the most amazing */? (“asterisk slash question-mark”) sentence I’ve ever heard,” which is about people who have been to a place such as Berlin or Russia. Joseph Greenberg advocated a fringe method named for a “multilateral” or “mass” form of this action. The formation of “correspondence sets” is part of a multi-step process of this name, which assumes the Neogrammarian hypothesis that sound changes are always regular; that “method” is used to reconstruct proto-languages. In Latin, a form of this name is exemplified by the word melior, which evolved into the French mieux (“myuh”) and the Spanish mejor (“may-HOR”). For 10 points, give this term for the grammatical construction lesser in degree than the superlative, which in English is often formed by adding the suffix “-er.” ■END■
ANSWER: comparative [or relative comparison; accept word forms such as compare; accept comparative illusion; accept mass comparison or multilateral comparison; accept comparative method; accept comparative linguistics; accept comparative adjectives] (The illusion sentence is “More people have been to Berlin than I have.” Melior, mieux, and mejor all mean “better.”)
<Social Science>
= Average correct buzz position