Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg
Lehrstuhl für Englische Sprachwissenschaft und Mediävistik
PS II: Contrastive Linguistics English - German

Comparison in English and German

von: Markus Schneider

Table of Contents

0. Introduction 03

1. Degrees of Comparison 03

2. The Three Types of Comparison 03

3. A Closer View upon Adjectives 04

3.1 Monosyllabic Adjectives 04
3.2 Disyllabic Adjectives 04
3.3 Adjectives with Three or More Syllables 05

4. Irregular Comparison 05

5. Exceptions 06

5.1 Adjectives with Fixed Degrees 06
5.2 Adjectives with -less and un- 06
5.3 Periphrasis with Short Adjectives 07

6. Inflection 07

7. Comparison with Adverbs 08

8. Comparing Things and Persons (Equality or Inequality) 08

8.1 Comparative 08
8.2 Superlative 09
8.3 Exceptions 09

9. Comparison with no comparative meaning 10

10. Conclusion 10

Bibliography 11

0. Introduction

In language we often use comparison in order to express similarity ("He looks like you") and difference ("He doesn’t look like you") or equality ("He is as good as you") and inequality ("He is better than you". There are a lot of similarities in the English and the German language concerning comparison, so we are going to have a contrastive look at this phenomenon to find out some of the differences. We have worked through several grammar books and noticed that every author has or had his own opinion about comparison. In almost every book comparison is structured in a different way, but never in direct comparison to the German language, so we decided to design our own contrastive structure. This work focuses on the adjective and the adverb, and on how different degrees of comparison are created. The literature used by the authors was, for English matters mainly “A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language” by Quirk, et al., furthermore, Lamprecht´s “Grammatik der englischen Sprache”. For reference in German we made use of two editions of the “Duden Volume 4: Grammatik der deutschen Gegenwartssprache”.

1. Degrees of Comparison

In the English language, the absolute form fast can have a comparative form (faster) by adding -er, and a superlative form (fastest) by adding -est. The German equivalent is schnell, schnell-er, am schnell-sten. It is obvious that English comparison has got a lot in common with the German "Steigerung" because the two systems work in the same way. There are also no significant differences in meaning.

2. The Three Types of Comparison

Most adjectives and adverbs are gradable and therefore have three types of comparison, i.e. comparison in relation to a higher degree (better / more beautiful than...), to the same degree (...as beautiful as), or to a lower degree by less and least (less beautiful). Adjectives and adverbs which compare things in relation to a higher degree can be created with inflection (fast - faster - fastest) or periphrasis (intelligent - more intelligent - most intelligent) (Quirk 1992: 458). Periphrasis is not used in the German language, because of its synthetic structure.

3. A Closer look at Adjectives

In general, adjectives (or adverbs) are used to form comparisons. They express a certain quality which makes a comparison to other degrees possible. Therefore we are going to have a closer look at adjectives in the following paragraphs.

3.1 Monosyllabic Adjectives

Whether you have to use inflectional or periphrastic comparison depends mostly on the length of the adjective. Monosyllabic adjectives form comparison by inflection (fast - faster - fastest). Adjectives ending in -e only take -r and -st , i.e. late - later - latest; if the adjective ends in a consonant following a vowel, the consonant is doubled in the comparative and superlative form (big - bigger - biggest). German speakers inflect all adjectives in the same pattern, except 20 adjectives whose root vowel is a, o or u. With adjectives of this sort you have to create an umlaut (arm - ärmer - am ärmsten). Referring to the Duden (Volume 4 1984: 712), very few adjectives can have both forms (krumm - krummer/krümmer or rot - roter/röter).

3.2 Disyllabic Adjectives

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