Monday, 12 August 2013

comparatives

LESSON 3 everyone on the course must read this and add a comment that they read it, anyone else who is not on the course can make a constructive comment if they want, theres an italian translation from paolo ciampa my best friend and great tottenham fan

LESSON 2
QUESTA LEZIONE E PER I STUDENTI DEL CORSO DI RECUPERO DI INGLESE DEL INSTITUTO STRAFFA.
"Queste Lezioni si svolgeranno ogni settimana per tutta l'estate. Gli studenti sono invitati a partecipare indicando gli argomenti da affrontare.

COMPARATIVES
In linguistics, the comparative serves to express a comparison between two (or more) THINGS or groups of entities in quality, quantity, or degree. The comparative is signaled in English by the suffix -er or by a word of comparison (as, more, less) and the conjunction- or preposition-like word as or than.
so = TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR ARE BETTER THAN ARSENAL AND MILAN

ITALY IS THE SAME AS SPAIN

BOTH ARE COMPARING SOMETHING, THIS IS CALLED A COMPARATIVE
A COMPARATIVE MEANS TO COMPARE TWO THINGS AND IN THE COMPARITIVE THERE MUST ALWAYS BE TWO THINGS, A COMPARATIVE MEANS TO COMPARE

MARIA IS BETTER LOOKING THAN ANY WOMAN I KNOW

ONE THING IS maria THE SECOND THING IS any woman i know

in the uk we have publicity like this =DAZ WASHES Whiter
its not a comparative because there is no second think so its gramatically wrong because we dont know what daz washes whiter than

The comparative is frequently associated with adjectives and adverbs because these words take the -er suffix or modifying word more or less (e.g. faster, more intelligent, less wasteful);

HAMILTON IS FASTER THAN ANY ITALIAN DRIVER

GERMANY IS LESS WASTEFUL THAN ITALY AS REGARDS RUBBISH

PROF GARY IS MORE INTELLIGENT THAN ANYONE

it can also, however, appear when no adjective or adverb is present, for instance with nouns

QUESTION. WHAT WAS THE PARTY LIKE?

ANSWER. NOT VERY GOOD BECAUSE THERE WERE MORE men than women.

Most if not all languages have some means of forming the comparative, although these means can vary significantly from one language to the next.
The comparitve can be part of a whole sentence

"Paolo is bald and so is Freddie his mate but Paolo's head is BETTER than Freddie's because it looks like an orange and |Freddie's head looks like a pear .

Paolo comes from Calabria and he says "Calabria is much better than Brianza and that Calabrians are more fun than Brianzans"

here we have two comparisons in one sentence.

The comparative in English is generally expressed by a combination of two elements/words, by -er, more, less, as and a second word introducing the second part of the comparison (as or than). As described in the following section, the suffix -er is used with many adjectives, particularly monosyllabic ones (and some adverbs), and more is used with all other words (other adjectives and adverbs, nouns).

MARY. She is smarter than him.

SUSAN. YEH THATS TRUE AND She is more intelligent than him.

HERE ARE MORE EXAMPLES

. Your music is nicer than my music.

Your music is more pleasant than my music.

Sam helps less often than Susan does.

He laughs more than you do.

More boys wanted to play than girls.

Tom is as annoying as he is useless.

The THINGS compared by the comparative can be most anything, e.g. people, places, things, actions, abstract notions, traits, etc.

Most adverbs are formed in English by adding -ly to the end of an adjective, which makes them polysyllabic; they therefore form the comparative via more, as in

This sofa seats three people more comfortably than the other one.

Some irregular adverbs such as fast or hard do not use more, though, but rather they take the -er suffix, as the adjectives do, e.g.

My new car starts faster than the old one

or

She studies harder than her sister does.

Comparatives without than

null comparative

THE null comparative is one in which the starting point for comparison is not stated. These comparisons are frequently found in advertising, for example, in typical assertions such as

Our burgers have more flavor

Our picture is sharper.

These uses of the comparative do not mention what it is they are being compared to. In some cases it is easy to infer what the missing element in a null comparative is. In other cases, the speaker or writer has been deliberately vague, for example "Glasgow's miles better".

The null comparative has sense for the english but is often used badly

MARY.The boys round here are really ugly

SUSAN . "bill is miles better".

the sense here is that bill is better than all the boys around here who are really ugly, bill is the first thing and the boys around here the second, we really need two thgings to make a comparative although the null comparative is based on the other person understanding whast the missing thing is

MARY. This pizza is better
Susan . you can say that again

but what is the pizza better than, in susan's mind the pizza is better than all the pizzas shes ever eaten, but its not clear so in a test dont write the null comparative.

on t.shirts we see ITALIANS DO IT BETTER

BUT WHAT DO THEY DO BETTER? Whining all the time?)lol

so the grammar is wrong

Scientific classification

This includes the adjectives greater and lesser, when a large or small variety of an item is meant, These adjectives may at first sight appear as a kind of null comparative, when as is usual, they are cited without their opposite counterpart. It should be apparent, however, that an entirely different variety of animal, scientific, or geographical object is intended. Thus it may be found, for example,

that the lesser panda entails a giant panda variety,

if there is a Lesser Antilles then there must be a Greater Antilles.

if there ius a lower Chad then there a greater Chad

No comments:

Post a Comment