Degrees of Comparison - 1

Topic Introduction

The Degrees of Comparison in English grammar are made with the Adjective and Adverb words to show how big or small, high or low, more or less, many or few, etc., of the qualities, numbers and positions of the nouns (persons, things and places) in comparison to the others mentioned in the other part of a sentence or expression.

An Adjective is a word which qualifies (shows how big, small, great, many, few, etc.) a noun or a pronoun is in a sentence.

An adjective can be attributive (comes before a noun) or predicative (comes in the predicate part):

e.g.  He is a tall man. (‘tall’ –  adjective – attributive)

This man is tall.  (‘tall’ –  adjective – predicative)

An Adverb is a word which adds to the meaning of the main verb (how it is done, when it is done, etc.) of a sentence or expression.

It normally ends with ‘ly’, but there are some adverbs that are without ‘ly’:

e.g.  She ate her lunch quickly.   He speaks clearly.  They type fast.

Kinds of comparison:

1. POSITIVE DEGREE: Tom is tall a boy.

In this sentence the word ‘tall’ is an adjective telling us how Tom is.  There is no other person or thing in this sentence used to compare Tom with, but it is the general way of saying about persons, animals and things that they have some quality (here ‘tallness’) above average in general sense. The adjective word ‘tall’ is said to be  in the “positive form”.

This comparison is called “positive degree” comparison.

There are two more comparisons with the ‘positive form’ of the adjective words. They are:

(i)  Degree of Equality: This comparison is used to compare two persons, animals or things to tell us that they are equal – having the same quality.

There are  two cats with the same height and weight, and look the same except for the colour.

Therefore we say:

The brown cat is as beautiful as the grey cat.  (= Both the cats are the same.)

The word “beautiful” is an adjective in the ‘positive form’, and with the conjunction as…as  it expresses the ‘degree of equality’.

(ii)  Degree of Inequality: This comparison is used to compare two persons, animals or things to tell us that they are not equal – not having the same quality.

The brown cat is not so beautiful as the black & white cat.         (= They are notthe same.)

The word “beautiful” is an adjective in the ‘positive form’, and with the conjunction so…as (and the negative ‘not’) it expresses the ‘degree of inequality’

2. COMPARATIVE DEGREE:

Tom is a tall boy.                   Tom is taller than his sister.                                               

In the second sentence the word ‘taller’ is an adjective used to compare the ‘tallness’ of these two persons – Tom and his sister – and to tell us that Tom has more of the quality of ‘tallness’.

Therefore, an adjective word which shows the difference of quality between twotwogroups of persons, animals or things is said to be in the ‘comparative form’. persons, animals or things, or

This comparison is called “Comparative Degree”.

There are two more degrees of comparison with the ‘comparative form’ of an adjective. They are:

(i)  Parallel Degree: This comparison is used to show that the qualities of two items (adjectives or adverbs) talked about in the given sentence go parallel, i.e. if one quality (adjective or adverb) increases, the other quality (adjective or adverb) increases, and if one quality decreases, the other quality also decreases.

The bigger the box, the heavier it is.

(ii)  Progressive Degree: This comparison is used to show that the quality of a thing (adjective or adverb) talked about in the given sentence increases as the time passes, for example:

MON      TUE         WED       THU        FRI          SAT         SUN

25° → 27° → 30° → 33°→ 35° → 38° → 40°

It’s getting hotter and hotter day by day.  [as the time passes the temperature increases] OR The days are getting hotter and hotter.

3. SUPERLATIVE DEGREE:

A musk ox is a large animal.         An elephant is larger than a musk ox.

The blue whale is the largest of all animals.

The blue whale is the largest of all animals in the world.

In this sentence the word (the) ‘largest’ is an adjective used to compare the “largeness” of the blue whale and to tell us that the blue whale has the most quality of ‘largeness’.

This comparison is used to compare one person, animal or thing with more than two persons, animals or things (the rest of the group of more than two), and to say that the particular one has the highest degree of that       particular quality (here the comparison is between the blue whale and the rest of the animals, more than two). The adjective ‘large’ is said to be in the ‘superlative form’.

This comparison is called “Superlative Degree”.

The next point to be considered is the forms of the adjectives and adverbs.

There are three forms – positive form, comparative form and superlative form – and seven degrees of comparison. That means we make seven degrees of comparison using the three forms of almost every adjective or adverb word.  Therefore, it is important for us to discuss the forms before going any further into this topic.

Most adjective or adverb words in their positive form take ‘er’  to change to comparative and ‘est’ to change to superlative form.  However, the words ending in ‘e’ take only ‘r’ to change to comparative form and only ‘st’ to change to superlative form.  And there are other differences with words having different spelling.

The meaning of an adjective or adverb in Comparative and Superlative form does not change; it is only the form that is changed but not the meaning.

Therefore, depending on the spelling, the adjective or adverb words are separated into groups so that we can memorise the spellings of the words in their different forms easily.

Positive comparative superlative

a)  the words which end in ‘e’ belong to his group and take only ‘r’ in comparative form and ‘st’ in superlative form:

brave — braver — the bravest

large — larger — the largest

wise — wiser — the wisest

b) the words which end in any letter other than ‘e’ and/or ‘y’ belong to this group and take ‘er’ in comparative form and ‘est’ in superlative from:

sweet — sweeter — the sweetest

tall — taller — the tallest

young — younger — the youngest

c) the words which end in ‘y’ preceded by a consonant belong to this group; they lose the last letter ‘y’ and take ‘ier’ in the comparative form and ‘iest’ in superlative form:

happy — happier — the happiest

easy — easier — the easiest

heavy — heavier  — the heaviest

The words which end in ‘y’ preceded by a vowel, however, do not change their spelling but take ‘r/er’ in

comparative form and ‘st/est’ in superlative form: e.g. gay – gayer – gayest(this word is now considered old-fashioned in the sense of ‘happy; excited’, and in the present day English it is used for male homosexual).

d) the words which end in a ‘consonant’ having a ‘vowel’ before that consonant belong to this group, and have their last consonant letter doubled before taking ‘er’ in comparative form and ‘est’ in superlative form:

red — redder — the  reddest

thin — thinner — the  thinnest

hot – hotter — the  hottest

e) the words which have ‘two or more vowel sounds’ in them belong to this group, and take the word “more” before them in comparative form and the word “ (the)most” in superlative form:

beautiful                                     more beautiful                               the most beautiful

difficult                                       more difficult                                 the most difficult

splendid                                      more splendid                                the most splendid

f) the words in this group do not take any suffix or any other word before them, but change their spelling and pronunciation entirely to form new words with the same meaning, of course:

good/well –  better — the  best

bad/evil/ill — worse — the  worst

little — less/lesser*  — the  least

much — more — the most

many — more — the  most

late — later/latter* — the latest/last*

old — older/elder* – the oldest/eldest*

far  — farther — the  farthest

fore — former — the  foremost/first*

fore –  further  — the  furthest

in — inner  — the  inmost/inner most

up — upper  — the  upmost/uppermost

out — outer/utter — the utmost/utter most

There are some words in the list that take more than one form in comparative and superlative form.

Each of the two words gives a different meaning; therefore, it is best to know them well before going any further in this topic.

Late – later, latter; latest, last;   old – elder, older; eldest, oldest

Far – farther, further; farthest, furthest;   near – nearest, next

Later, latter; latest, last

Later and latest refer to time

Latter and last refer to position

e.g.  He is later than I expected.      (he has come late)     I have not heard the latest news.  (recent news)

The latter chapters of the book are interesting.   (order of position)

The last chapter is bad.  (order of position)

[Suppose there are ten chapters in a book, the “latter” chapters could be

Chapters 7,8,9 & 10; the ‘last’ chapter is chapter 10. “latter” is also used

to talk about the second of the two people or things mentioned.]

The word ‘latter’ is, strictly speaking, used for only two persons or things; however, it is also used for three persons or things, as in “the latter of the three”, but in American English.

Elder, older; eldest, oldest

“Elder and eldest” are used only of persons – seniority than age.

(they are used with members of the same family.)

** “Elder” is not used with conjunction ‘than’.

“Older and oldest” are used of both persons and things – time (age)

e.g. John is my elder brother.   Ahmed is his eldest son. (family relation — seniority)

Tom is older than his sister. (of people — family relation — age)

Sarah is the oldest girl in the class.       (of people — no family relation – age)

Town Hall is the oldest building in our town.  (of things – age)

“Tom is older than his sister.”  so “Tom is her elder brother.”  and “She is his younger sister.”

There are, however, some occasions where “older and oldest” are used for showing the seniority of members of the same family.  Here we have a good example:

“Is Aunt Dee your oldest sister, Dad?”       (family relation – seniority – but “oldest” is used) Taken from ‘BASIC SKILLS IN ENGLISH’ Book 6, by The Editorial Staff of Mc Dougal, Littell and Company, USA

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