This paper investigates the contribution of lexical spreads (or type counts) of English comparativemoreand -erconstructions to an understanding of comparative alternation in the$y$-adjectives, that is adjectives ending in an orthographic${<}\text{y}>$and an /i/ sound, e.g.lazy. Comparative$y$-adjective constructions from seven corpora of stage plays spanning from the 17th to the 20th century were analysed with mixed-effects modelling and correlations drawn between the comparatives of$y$-adjectives and those of other adjectives. The findings indicate that while morphological complexity in$y$-adjectives biases them towardsmore,moreoccurrences with$y$-adjectives may also be related to the lexical spread ofmorein disyllabic adjectives that are not$y$-ones. The findings suggest moreover that predictions of comparative forms based on the syntactic positioning of$y$-adjectives and the [±voiced] nature of their penultimate segments may make sense only with respect to the lexical spread ofmorein other English adjectives. To understand why$y$-adjectives seem divided between -erregularisation and adherence to the trend in English comparisons of amorebias, this paper proposes a need to supplement accounts of comparative alternation focused on the characteristics of$y$-adjectives with considerations related to the lexical spread of comparative constructions.

中文翻译：

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理解形容词的比较交替：我们还需要什么？

本文调查了英语比较的词汇扩展（或类型计数）的贡献更多的和 -呃理解比较交替的结构$y$-形容词，即以正字法结尾的形容词${<}\文本{y}>$和 /i/ 声音，例如懒惰的. 比较$y$- 对 17 至 20 世纪七个舞台剧语料库的形容词结构进行了分析，采用混合效果建模和比较之间的相关性$y$-形容词和其他形容词。研究结果表明，虽然形态复杂性$y$-形容词使他们偏向更多的,更多的发生与$y$-形容词也可能与更多的在非双音节形容词中$y$-那些。此外，研究结果表明，基于句法定位的比较形式的预测$y$-形容词及其倒数第二段的[±浊音]性质可能仅对更多的在其他英语形容词中。了解为什么$y$-形容词似乎分为-呃正则化和遵守英语比较的趋势更多的偏差，本文提出需要补充比较交替的描述，重点是$y$- 考虑到比较结构的词汇扩展的形容词。