Ambiguous تمييز for اسم تفضيل, adjective/noun

[HotIcyDonut]

Say, "They consider themselves morally superior to us"

يعتبرون أنفسهم أفضل أخلاقياً منّا
يُعتبرون أنفسهم أفضل أخلاقاً منّا

"China is economically bigger than India"

الصين أكبر اقتصادياً من الهند
الصين أكبر اقتصاداً من الهند

How do you decide when to use a noun and when an adjective?

شكراً مقدماً

 

[analeeh]

The first one isn't tamyiz, it's just an adverb modifying the comparative adjective - exactly like English. Only the second is tamyiz.

I'm fairly sure both forms are acceptable in most cases, although there are plenty of tamyiz structures that can't be reworked this way: أكثر بياضًا منا, for example, or أقل حجما. I wouldn't be surprised if the adverb version was a long-established calque from European languages.

 

[HotIcyDonut]

I wouldn't be surprised if the adverb version was a long-established calque from European languages.

It feels like sometimes only an adverb is used. Google doesn't give anything about "أقوى عسكراً" but type "أقوى عسكرياً", and there will be videos, newspaper articles all over the place…

 

[Eternal student]

The point is that the traditional tamyiz doesn't work with any noun, only really abstract nouns: height, size, weight, importance, wealth, etc. Where such a noun isn't available, MSA will resort to an adjective.

 

[Abbe]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Isn't "children" something very concrete?

أنا أقل منك مالاً وولدا