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Degree
The grammatical category which expresses the degree to which some quality is present.
English adjectives and adverbs commonly distinguish three degrees: the positive (the
basic form), the comparative (expressing a higher degree than is present in something
else) and the superlative (expressing a maximal degree).
The comparative is formed with '-er' or with 'more'. The superlative is formed with 'est' or with 'most'. Short words like tall and short tend to prefer –er and –est; longer
ones like beautiful and carefully take more and most.
Examples are:
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John is tall (positive).
Peter is taller (comparative) than John.
Mike is the tallest (superlative) man I know.
Ann is beautiful (positive).
Mary is more beautiful (comparative) than Ann.
Alice is the most beautiful (superlative) girl in the class.
Comparative
The term comparative refers to that form of an adjective or an adverb which is
constructed either with –er or with more and which serves to express a higher degree of
the quality denoted by the base word.
Examples are: bigger from big, worse from bad, more beautiful from beautiful and
more carefully from carefully.
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She is taller than her husband.
Russian is more difficult than Spanish.
English also has a comparative of inferiority, constructed with less, as in less interesting.
Comparison using positive adjectives and adverbs
As … as …
This structure is used to say that people, things, actions or events are equal in a particular
way.
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A car is as fast as a bus.
Alice is as beautiful as Mary.
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Tom is as tall as Harry.
If we want to say that people, things etc are unequal in a particular way, we can use not
so … as … or not as … as …
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Tom is not as/so tall as Harry.
A car is not as/so fast as a train.
Alice is not as/so beautiful as Susie.
No other as … as …
This structure can be used to compare one person or thing with the whole group that
she/he/it belongs to.
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No other girl is as intelligent as Alice.
No other metal is as useful as iron.
No other river is as long as the Niles.
As much/many … as …/as few/little … as…
This structure is used to make a comparison of quantity.
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I earn as much money as you.
Alice has as many children as Mary.
Tom earns as much as Harry.
We have as many cars as them.
They have as few visitors as we have.
They have as little money as we have.
In an informal style, we use object pronouns (us, them, him etc.) after as. In a more
formal style, subject pronouns are used usually with verbs.
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I earn as much money as he does.
We have as many children as they have.
Not as much/many … as …
This structure can be used to say that quantities are not equal in a particular way.
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He does not earn as much as I do.
Harry does not eat as much food as Tom does.
We do not have as many visitors as them.
Comparative and superlative adjectives: formation
The comparative is formed with –er or more; the superlative is formed with –est or
most. One syllable adjectives like big and fast tend to prefer –er and –est. Larger ones
like beautiful and carefully take more and most.
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John is tall.
John is taller than Peter.
John is the tallest man I know.
Susie drives carefully.
Susie drives more carefully than Alice.
Susie drives the most carefully of anybody in Paris.
Comparision using comparative adjectives and adverbs
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She is older than me.
Tom is taller than his brothers.
Iron is more useful than any other metal.
He is cleverer than her.
In an informal style, object pronouns are used after than. In a more formal style, subject
pronouns are used usually with verbs.
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He is cleverer than she is.
He earns more than I do.
We can use double comparatives (…er and …er or more and more …) to say that
something is changing.
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You are getting fatter and fatter.
We are going more and more slowly.
The + comparative expression + subject + verb
We can use comparatives with the … the … to say that things change or vary together.
Note the word order in both clauses.
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The more I study, the less I learn. (NOT … I learn the less.)
The older I get, the happier I am. (NOT … I am the happier.)
More can be used with a noun in this structure.
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The more money he makes, the more useless things he buys
Comparison using superlative adjectives and adverbs
We use the superlative to compare somebody/something with the whole group that
she/he/it belongs to.
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Tom is the tallest of the four brothers.
Gold is the most precious of all metals. (OR Gold is the most precious metal.)
Grammar notes
Nouns with superlative adjectives normally take the article the (unless there is a
possessive).
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She is the best girl in the class. (NOT She is best girl …)
Superlative adjectives in predicative position also tend to take the, though it is sometimes
dropped in an informal style.
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This book is (the) best.
The is sometimes dropped before superlative adverbs in an informal style.
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Who can run (the) fastest?
After superlatives, we do not usually use of with a singular word referring to a place or a
group.
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He is the richest man in the world. (NOT … of the world.)
Who is the fastest player in the team? (NOT … of the team?)
But of can be used before plurals, and before singular quantifiers like lot and bunch.
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Iron is the most useful of all metals.
He is the best of the lot.
The difference between comparative and superlative
We use the comparative to compare one person, thing, action, event or group with
another person, thing etc. We use the superlative to compare somebody/something with
the whole group that she/he/it belongs to.
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Mary is taller than her three sisters.
Mary is the tallest of the four girls.
He plays better than anybody else in the team.
He is the best player in the team.
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Iron is more useful than any other metal.
Iron is the most useful metal.
When a group only has two members, we sometimes use the comparative instead of the
superlative.
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John and Tom are clever boys, but I think John is the cleverer/cleverest of the
two.
Take the shorter/shortest of the two routes.
Alice and Mary are rich women. But Alice is the richer/richest of the two.
Some people feel that a superlative is incorrect in this case.
Degree modifiers with comparatives and superlatives
We cannot use very with comparatives. Instead we use other degree modifiers like much,
far, very much, a lot, lots, any, no, rather, a little, a bit and even.
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She is much older than her husband. (NOT … very older than ...)
Is he any better?
Russian is much/far more difficult than Spanish.
You are no better than him.
Note that any, no, a bit and a lot are not normally used to modify comparatives before
nouns.
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There are much better shops in the city. (NOT … a bit/a lot better …)
Quite is not normally used with comparatives, but it is possible in the expression quite
better, meaning ‘recovered from an illness’.
Superlatives can be modified by much and by far, and by other adverbs of degree such
as quite and almost.
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She is by far the oldest in the firm.
He is quite the most stupid person I have ever met.
When more modifies a plural noun, it is modified by many.
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many more opportunities
When more modifies a singular/uncountable noun, it is modified by much.
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much more money