Functions of comparatives and superlatives
Adjectives graded for comparative and superlative degree can function both attributively and predicatively. Most descriptive adjectives are gradable:
As modifiers of a noun
Have you got a larger size?
I think you need a more up-to-date stereo.
What’s the funniest joke you’ve heard recently?
It wasn’t the most exciting match of the season.
The cleverest animals, as well as the better-looking, better-humored and more classy, are not the ones holding the leads. (Philip Howard in The Times)
As Cs in clauses
This house is smaller, but it’s nicer, and it’s got a bigger garden.
I think we need something more central.
Inflected forms of the comparative are illustrated in this short extract from H.G. Wells’s A Short History of the World:
For a hundred years power has been getting cheaper and labor dearer. If for a generation or so machinery has had to wait its turn in the mine, it is simply because for a time men were cheaper than machinery.
