Explaining the variability of adjective comparatives and superlatives: entering the twenty-first century

Abstract

There has been no lack of research on the variation of comparative adjective forms in contemporary English, but our understanding of comparison strategies is still limited, with respect to individual patterns of adjectives, as well as sociolinguistic factors (e.g. formality). This article presents a quantitative investigation of selected disyllabic adjectives in comparison (i.e. ample, bitter, common, complete, costly, deadly, empty, friendly, kindly, likely, obscure, remote, robust, severe, simple, sober, wealthy), based on the 2001–2005 issues of two different types of newspapers in British English (i.e. Daily Mail and The Independent). Our analysis reveals that, although previous studies have shown that some factors have an effect on the comparative alternation between the inflectional and periphrastic forms (e.g. costlier and more costly, respectively), these factors do not affect all adjectives equally. We also found that, for many adjectives, periphrastic comparison is more likely to be preferred in the less formal newspaper (i.e. Daily Mail). The present study also explores the strategies employed when selecting comparative forms for superlative adjectives and shows that factors which are influential on the comparative formation are not always effective on the superlative comparison.