A Study On Comparative Alternation In English

It is well known that there are two kinds of adjective comparatives in English: regular form and irregular ones.Regular comparatives are formed in two ways,including synthetic comparatives(i.e.smaller)and analytic ones(more comfortable).The traditional grammar stipulates that adjective comparatives take different forms according to the number of syllables and final segments.Monosyllables and disyllables ending with –y and –ow usually take the synthetic form-er,while much longer syllables use the form –more.About some irregular adjectives,usually one adjective has two thorough different forms,for example,further and farther are adjectives of far.Though with these rules,the actual usage of adjective comparatives is far more complicated and has caught much attention of a number of scholars.Relevant studies before are usually about the formation and usage,while studies on adjective alternation and motivations are fewer.There are three questions addressed in this research:(1)How many kinds of comparative alternations do adjectives have in English?(2)What’s the spectral distribution of 21 comparatives and further and farther?(3)What are the competing motivations governing the choice of comparative alternation?In order to approach the topic,statistical description is made and qualitative research method is employed instead of from a prescriptive perspective.Firstly,based on previous scholars’ study,the paper chose a number of adjective comparatives respectively from monosyllables,disyllables and some longer syllables of which the alternations are frequently used and easily catch ambiguity.Then using the data collected from Google Ngram Viewer and BNC,all the frequencies of comparatives chosen above were calculated and some tables are drawn to show the comparison clearly.Finally,an analysis of the statistics is made and the possible comparative motivations are summed up.The significance of present study lies in two aspects: theoretically,it presented a more comprehensive picture of the comparatives formation which can increase the knowledge of those who are interested in studying comparatives;practically,this paper can work out the problem English learners are faced with during their comparatives study,also can provide teachers with a new perspective during the comparatives teaching.The findings of the study are as follows: firstly,whether adjectives have monosyllables,disyllables or much longer syllables,the synthetic or analytic comparatives alteration appeared commonly along with irregular adjectives comparatives alteration exiting.Secondly,for those adjectives which have alternative comparatives,their choices are determined bymany factors.Thirdly,about further and farther,both comparative forms have undergone overlap and differentiation.Lastly,the motivations theories can be summed up as follows: uniformity and transparency;competition model;processing efficiency;complexity;communication preference;and the motivations factors include morph-phonological factor,semantic factor,syntactic factor and origin factor.