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I have a question about the sentence structure "the comparative adjective ... the comparative adjective" and "the comparative adverb ... the comparative adverb." (As in, "The more he practiced, the better he played.")

My question is, is it fine when one of the comparatives is an adjective, and the other is an adverb? When you are talking about people whose lives became busy, can you say this sentence?

The busier their lives became, the less frequently they saw their friends.

I am not sure if this sentence is fine because "the busier" is an adjective, but "the less frequently" is an adverb.

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There is no requirement in English grammar that a single sentence must contain only comparative adjectives or else only comparative adverbs. A sentence containing a comparative adjective may contain a comparative adverb.

Some purist might insist (but I would not) that it is poor style to have a comparative adjective in one parallel clause and a comparative adverb in a different parallel clause. Such a purist might write

The more hectic their lives became, the less frequent were their visits with friends

Such a rewrite admittedly strengthens the parallelism. But parallelism is just one aspect of style, and a natural and relaxed syntax is a different aspect of style.

Your sentence is fine.

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  • Why you have said: "the less frequent were their visits with friends"? Shouldn't it be "the less frequent their visits with friends were"?
    – alireza
    Commented Oct 27, 2022 at 14:38
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    Both are grammatical.
    – Jeff Morrow
    Commented Oct 27, 2022 at 17:17
  • I they identical in terms of the meaning the convey? I think "the less frequent were their visits with friends" is the inverted form which indicates emphasis.
    – alireza
    Commented Oct 27, 2022 at 17:33
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    You may be right with respect to spoken English although emphasis there also depends on volume and pitch. In written English, other means would likely be required to give emphasis. “As the degree to which our lives become more busy, our degree of engagement with friends decreases much more.” The resources of written English are less numerous than those of spoken English, which is why many quite articulate speakers of English are not excellent writers of English.
    – Jeff Morrow
    Commented Oct 28, 2022 at 2:44
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    Yes, but placement of the verb “be” is more flexible than is true for verbs generally. Putting “became” before the subject is somewhat awkward.
    – Jeff Morrow
    Commented Oct 28, 2022 at 13:37

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