영어 형용사 비교 구문의 최근 변화: 과연 통사 비교는 확대되고 있는가?

On the Recent Change in English Adjectival Comparison: Is Syntactic Comparison Really Being Expanded?

This article examines if there has been any actual change in English adjectival comparison recently. Especially, we examine if the syntactic mode of comparison is increasing in the sacrifice of the morphological mode, as Barber (1964, 1976), Potter (1969: 146-47), Mair and Leech (2006), and others have argued. We used the large-scale corpora such as COCA and COHA in our research. The result is that we could not find any significant evidence showing the increase of the syntactic comparison mode. This is a confirmation of the argument, e.g. by Bauer (1994), Mair (2006: 148), and others, that there is no real change in the structure of English comparison. It is well-known that the choice between the two comparison modes is based on the word length (i.e. syllable number), morphological factors like the specific endings of adjectives, spellings (e.g. ending in consonant clusters), phonological factors (e.g. word-final stress), and others. But it is not always possible to predict which mode of comparison a specific adjective will take. We have found that the choice of mode is more based on the structural factors. At the same time, it has been found that the individual lexical choice is clear, e.g. some mono- and di-syllabic adjectives take (or prefer) the syntactic mode. But what is important is that this is not the recent change. Our conclusion is that English comparison shows a clearer tendency toward complementary distribution between the two modes, rather than the replacement of one by the other.