大学语法(25)Comparison amp; comparative__ construction.pptVIP

Lecture 25 As has been shown, most adjectives and adverbs are gradable and can be used in comparative clauses. When appearing in comparative constructions, adjectives and adverbs take special grammatical forms which are called “forms of comparison”. 25.1 Comparison of adjectives and adverbs With gradable adjectives and adverbs, there are three degrees of comparison: positive/ absolute degree, com- parative degree and superlative degree. The positive / absolute degree is just the base form of an adjective or adverb. The comparative and superlative degrees may be regular or irregular. Most adjectives and adverbs have regular comparison; only a few of them are irregular. 1) Regular comparison of adjectives Comparison in relation to a higher or the highest de- gree is expressed by the inflected forms in -er or -est, or by their equivalents with more or most; the former is known as the synthetic form and the latter the analytic form. Generally speaking, with mono-syllabic adjectives the comparative and superlative degrees are formed by adding ___ and ___ to the positive, and with adjectives of more than two syllables by adding _____ and _____. Disyllabic adjectives may have either _______ forms or __________ forms except for those ending in –y and -ow which more often than not take the synthetic forms. tall ? taller ? tallest small ? smaller ? smallest big ? bigger ? biggest wide ? wider ? widest beautiful ? more beautiful ? most beautiful clever cleverer / more clever, cleverest / most clever simple simpler / more simple, simplest / most simple gentle gentler / more gentle, gentlest / most gentle mature maturer / more mature, maturest / most mature foolish ? more foolish ? most foolish stupid ? more stupid ? most stupid silly ? sillier ? silliest early ? earlier ? earliest narrow ? narrower ? narrowest x 2) Regular comparison of adverbs Comparison of adverbs is similar to that of adjectives. Adv