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:
“If rightly made, a boat would be a sort of amphibious animal, a creature of two elements, related by one half its structure to some swift and shapely fish, and by the other to some strong-winged and graceful bird.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Slumism is the pent-up anger of people living on the outside of affluence. Slumism is decay of structure and deterioration of the human spirit. Slumism is a virus which spreads through the body politic. As other “isms,” it breeds disorder and demagoguery and hate.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“When a house is tottering to its fall,
The strain lies heaviest on the weakest part,
One tiny crack throughout the structure spreads,
And its own weight soon brings it toppling down.”
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)