What are English comparatives and superlatives?

As the above table demonstrates, the positive denotes a property (smart), the comparative indicates a greater degree of that property (smarter), and the superlative represents the greatest degree of that property (smartest). While many adjectives and adverbs undergo morphological changes to represent these distinctions (in which the suffixes ‘-er’ and ‘-est’ are added to the end of the word), some adjectives and adverbs instead require syntactic additions to demonstrate grammatical comparison. In the English language, these syntactic additions come in the form of the words ‘more/less’ and ‘most/least’.   

How are comparatives and superlatives useful?

Comparison is an important feature of any language and will be useful for students regardless of their purpose for learning English. By studying this topic, you’ll not only increase your knowledge of English morphology, syntax and vocabulary, but you’ll also improve your ability to confidently compare two or more entities and demonstrate extremes of scale across select properties.

Because comparisons tend to be more commonly made in speech rather than in writing, learners of general English will initially find studying these constructions more useful. Examples such as those provided in the table below may very well be heard with some frequency in everyday speech: