noun + comparative phase - grammar construction

[vcolts]

Ex.
a. ...a life better than death...
b...an apartment better than a hotel...
etc.

What is the grammatical construction of the above?

a life "which is" better (adjective) than death? (so is it a reduced clause? I thought that it cannot be reduced when there is an adjective?)

Thanks in advance.

[Tdol]

There is an understood that/which is in both of those, but it could depend on the wider context.