Yes , this is the rule that l wanna simplify it ,please
O.K., thank you for the clarification. All right, the "the + COMPARATIVE . . . the + COMPARATIVE" construction in English expresses proportionality, that is, "the A . . . the B" indicates that the more A increases, improves, accelerates etc. a proportional effect will be true on B. So in "The more I visit Paris, the more I love it" the implication is that if I visit Paris X times, my love for Paris will be greater by X times (though it may not be possible to devise an exact proportion or ratio that is true for all such sentences containing this construction). It should also be noted that by "COMPARATIVE" we don't just mean higher-degree comparison as expressed by "more" but also also lower-degree comparison as expressed by "less." That is, it is quite possible to say "The less I practice, the less skilled I become." We can even mix higher- and lower-degree comparison in this construction, i.e., "The more I talk to him, the less I like him."
As for the grammar of this construction, it should be noted that the "the + COMPARATIVE . . . the + COMPARATIVE" construction is syntactically a correlative, that is, it links together elements of a phrase or a sentence into a single unit, elements which cannot be omitted without changing the meaning and/or resulting in an ungrammatical construction. Other types of correlatives in English are "either . . . or" as in "Either John or Mary will pay him" and "as . . . as" as in "as corrupt as the leadership has become."
But the syntax of "the + COMPARATIVE . . . the + COMPARATIVE" construction is rather unusual in that it works by extracting some element of a clause (which is often not expressed explicitly but merely understood as in the English proverb "The more, the merrier"), putting it into the comparative form, i.e., using either the comparative inflection "-er" or putting "more" before it for adjectives and adverbs, or using just "more" for nouns or noun phrases or verbs (or using "less" in all these cases for lower-degree comparison) and then "fronting" it or putting it at the beginning of the clause preceded by "the." The range of sentence elements that be put into the comparative and fronted in this manner is wide, and here are some examples:
--adjectives as subject complements: "The more embarrassed she becomes, the redder her face gets." (cf. "She becomes embarrassed" and "Her face gets red")
--nouns as direct objects: "The more gold he finds, the more treasure he seeks." (cf. "He finds gold" and "He seeks treasure")
--adverbials: "The less off the grid I live, the more I appreciate technology" (cf. "I live off the grid" and "I appreciate technology much")
I hope this helps you in some way. Thank you for asking me your question through Ask.fm.
As for the grammar of this construction, it should be noted that the "the + COMPARATIVE . . . the + COMPARATIVE" construction is syntactically a correlative, that is, it links together elements of a phrase or a sentence into a single unit, elements which cannot be omitted without changing the meaning and/or resulting in an ungrammatical construction. Other types of correlatives in English are "either . . . or" as in "Either John or Mary will pay him" and "as . . . as" as in "as corrupt as the leadership has become."
But the syntax of "the + COMPARATIVE . . . the + COMPARATIVE" construction is rather unusual in that it works by extracting some element of a clause (which is often not expressed explicitly but merely understood as in the English proverb "The more, the merrier"), putting it into the comparative form, i.e., using either the comparative inflection "-er" or putting "more" before it for adjectives and adverbs, or using just "more" for nouns or noun phrases or verbs (or using "less" in all these cases for lower-degree comparison) and then "fronting" it or putting it at the beginning of the clause preceded by "the." The range of sentence elements that be put into the comparative and fronted in this manner is wide, and here are some examples:
--adjectives as subject complements: "The more embarrassed she becomes, the redder her face gets." (cf. "She becomes embarrassed" and "Her face gets red")
--nouns as direct objects: "The more gold he finds, the more treasure he seeks." (cf. "He finds gold" and "He seeks treasure")
--adverbials: "The less off the grid I live, the more I appreciate technology" (cf. "I live off the grid" and "I appreciate technology much")
I hope this helps you in some way. Thank you for asking me your question through Ask.fm.
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