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to a certainextent. The final discussion related to the non-comparable adjectives, and the factor ofgradability was tested against the data. It showed that adjective comparison hasexpanded to adjectives previously recognized as non-gradable, and that the lowgradability is generally matched by higher ratios for analytic comparatives, higher tothe extent that quite a few of them only adopt the analytic form, leaving little spacefor the synthetic form, which supports the hypothesis in Chapter Two that English ismoving towards a more analytic form of the language with the course of time.The fourth chapter centered on the choice between analytic and syntheticcomparative. Mondorf’s more-support theory was introduced here because some ofmy analyses were based on her concept. In this chapter, I examined three factors:morpho-phonological factors, syntactic position and the origin of the adjectives, to geta better understanding of the linguistic motivations governing comparative formation.We saw that the addition of the –er suffix rendered the positive form (disyllabicadjectives) and destroyed the former syllable structure (the coda of the second syllablein the positive form would become the onset of the third syllabic in the comparativeform), and so the analytic form would be preferred in those cases. Concerning thesyntactic position, this paper mainly checked the choice of comparative in attributiveand predicative positions, showing that synthetic form is relatively preferred over itsanalytic form in attributive position, while analytic form is favored in predicativeposition. As for the influence of origin on the choice, this paper has reached theconclusion that loan adjectives are more likely to form analytic comparatives, whichmay ease the cognitive process, which can be supported by Mondorf’s more-supporttheory.This paper has tried to provide a comprehensive and accurate research andanalyses on the choice of English adjective comparative formation. However, due tolimited academic abilities, this research is tentative. If time permits, further researchmay make the paper more convincing and comprehensive. This paper has identifiedmany factors, such as frequency of positive form, number of syllables, final segments,morpho-phonological factors, syntactic position, gradability and origin of theadjectives. However, the conclusion must be that these factors play joint roles in thechoice of comparative, and we have not attempted to determine their relative strengths.In other words, further research should determine the relative importance of thevarious factors that affect the comparative alternation. A hierarchy of the factorsshould be constructed to guide the choice of comparative formation in present-dayEnglish usage, which would also be useful and relevant for foreign learners ofEnglish.Another aspect of further research is that corpus data could be divided intoBritish English and American English. Since the syllable structure varies betweenthese two variants of English, the division of corpus is necessary, especially whenstudying adjectives ending in –able, -er, -ere, -ure, -le and adjectives that differ innumber of syllables between British English and American English. For example,capable is disyllabic in British English ['keip bl] which neglects the /l/ syllable, whilein American English ['keip b l], it sometimes is counted as three syllables. Thus, thedifference in number of syllables in these two variants of English may shed new lighton th本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。