Evaluative Grammar and Non-Standard Comparatives: A Cross-Linguistic Analysis of Ukrainian and English

This study examines non-standard comparative and superlative adjective forms in Ukrainian and English, emphasizing their evaluative meanings and grammatical deviations. While prescriptive grammar dictates conventional comparison patterns, modern discourse—particularly in advertising, informal communication, and literary texts—exhibits an increasing prevalence of innovative comparative structures. Using a corpus-based approach, this research identifies patterns of positive and negative evaluative meanings, revealing that positive evaluations dominate non-standard comparatives in both languages, particularly in advertising (English: 78.5%, Ukrainian: 80.2%). However, English exhibits a higher tolerance for grammatical flexibility, while Ukrainian maintains a more restricted use, primarily in commercial and expressive discourse. The findings highlight the pragmatic and evaluative functions of such constructions, including hyperbolic emphasis, rhetorical contrast, and branding strategies. These insights contribute to research on comparative grammar, sentiment analysis, and natural language processing, particularly in modeling evaluative structures in computational linguistics.