Premodifier(?) before a comparative adjective

I have a question about premodifiers (I think that's what they are called) that come before a comparative. As far as I know, a comparative is an adjective (or an adverb) and therefore can be preceeded by an adverb.

Ex: John is much smarter than Sam. In this example, the word "much" is used to indicate the intensity of the comparison or something like that. Since "smarter" is an adjective, I assume that "much" is an adverb. Assuming that this is correct (I am not so sure that it is...) why is it that I cannot use the adverb "very" in front of "smarter"?

That is, I know that "John is very smarter than Sam. " is incorrect, but what is the grammatical rule governing this? Is there a comprehensive list of adverbs that can and cannot preceed a comparative adjective?

Please Help...

Hi jaykoo :) ,

Take a look here:- http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handou...esladjadv.html
for some basic rules relating to your query.

I do not think there would be a specific list of words anywhere.

Hope this helps.

.

Hi John -

I checked the site that you recommended and it didn't begin to address the issue that I raised. The link led me to a brief overview of adjectives and adverbs. What am I missing? Is there a further link from that page that discusses modifiers preceeding a comparative? Please let me know. :(

[Tdol]

You are right- 'much' is an adverb here. I don't know of a list of adverbs that can be used- I'll look out for one and come back to you. We use much and far a lot, and quite simply don't use very.