Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Comparatives: General Principles
Comparatives: General Principles
General principles
Adjectives
Adverbs
Nouns
Verbs
Related topics
General principles
Comparatives are used to compare two things and to highlight the superiority,
inferiority, or equality of one term compared to another. The comparative can apply
to adjectives, adverbs, nouns, or even verbs. Whatever the part of speech
concerned, the structure of the comparison remains the same:
superiority more+term1 than+term2inferiority less+term1 than+term2eq.
(adj/adv) as+term1 as+term2equality(nouns) as much+term1 as+term2
Note: Certain common adjectives, and adverbs that do not end in –ly, omit
“more�? and take the ending –er. Thus fast –> faster; big –> bigger, small –>
smaller, etc.
Adjectives
Adjectival comparisons follow these models:
Adverbs
Adverbial comparisons follow these models:
Nouns
Noun comparisons follow these patterns:
Verbs
"More," "less," and "as" can be used as adverbs to modify verbs:
Related topics
Superlatives