Structure
The structure of a comparative in English consists normally of the positive form of the adjective or adverb, plus the suffix -er, or (in the case of polysyllabic words borrowed from foreign languages) the modifier more (or less/fewer) before the adjective or adverb. The form is usually completed by than and the noun which is being compared, e.g. "He is taller than his father", or "The village is less picturesque than the town nearby". Than is used as a subordinating conjunction to introduce the second element of a comparative sentence while the first element expresses the difference, as in "Our new house is larger than the old one", "There is less water in Saudi Arabia than in the United States", "There are fewer people in Canada than in California."
Some adjectives and adverbs that deal with the concept of distance use the modifiers further and furthest (or farther and farthest) instead of more, for example, "The boy ran farther away" or "The expedition was the farthest up the river ever recorded".
Comparison normally applies only to gradable adjectives and adverbs, not to ungradable ones like dead and unique.
Read more about this topic: Comparative
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)
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“What is the structure of government that will best guard against the precipitate counsels and factious combinations for unjust purposes, without a sacrifice of the fundamental principle of republicanism?”
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