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English Adjective Comparison And Analogy, Dirk Elzinga

Faculty Publications

There are two strategies for forming the comparative degree of adjectives in English; a synthetic strategy which suffixes -er to the adjective stem, and an analytical strategy which uses more in composition with the adjective. Many analyses of the choice between analytical and synthetic comparison have been proposed, but all face difficulties. In this paper I show that analogy can not only account for the distribution of analytical and synthetic comparison as well as traditional rule-based approaches, but can also provide a psychologically plausible model for the choice which speakers make.