Unit 7b Book

In the previous section, the phrases were categorized into two groups depending on their meaning. Basically, comparison expressions are used to talk about similarities, while contrast words and phrases express differences. Lexically, both comparison and contrast expressions also differ in their level of formality. For example, "however" is considered more formal than "but", which is more informal.

Grammatically, comparison and contrast phrases fall into several categories based on their word class. They can function as connectives, verbs, nouns, adjectives, or adverbs. To a certain extent, the word class influences the position of comparison/contrast expressions in a sentence and their associated punctuation, as you can see in the previous exercise:

A... , but B... - Chrysler has a roof luggage rack, but Ford doesn’t have one. 

A... . However, it (A)... - Chrysler has a roof luggage rack. However, it is not very big. 

A... ; however, it (A)... - Chrysler has a roof luggage rack; however, it is not very big. 

A… . B, however,… - Chrysler has a roof luggage rack. Ford, however, doesn’t have one.

Surprisingly, the position of comparison/contrast expressions in a sentence is very often the same in Czech and in English. Therefore, with compare/contrast expressions, it is worth remembering their Czech meaning precisely, as the meaning will help you to position a compare/contrast expression in a sentence correctly.

You can find a list of comparison and contrast expressions here. On the first two pages of this document, comparison/contrast expressions are sorted out according to their lexical meaning, while on page three, they are categorized based on their grammatical meaning + the associated punctuation is indicated. Do not feel overwhelmed by seeing so many comparison and contrast expressions and do not try to memorize them just by looking at this list. Instead, use this document while doing the following technically-related tasks and highlight the expressions you come across.