Is less of a risk

Question

Mr Damien Duhamel, Managing Director of KAE Asia, tells VET's Thu Trang that Vietnam is less of a risk as a manufacturing location than in Asia Pacific but needs to adopt innovative policies to carve out a long term niche.

Source: "Future forte", VIETNAM ECONOMICS TIMES.

According to my dictionaries, it seems that "less" is used as a pronoun and " of a risk as..." acts as a adjective prepositional phrase. However, it is possible to say that it is an adjective there?
Thanks.

Square · Accepted Answer

Sorry for the mistake. I can't edit it directly in the first post.
It should be " Vietnam is less of a risk as a manufacturing location than elsewhere in Asia Pacific...."

CalifJim · Answer

Squareit is possible to say that it is an adjective there?

I don't see how that would work. "more of a" and "less of a" are like adverbs of degree. Though it is almost always used in such constructions, "of" is optional.

less of a risk ~ less risky ~ risky to a lesser degree.

I don't believe anything of any importance in learning English hinges on finding "the correct label" for this construction. I'm sure there are plenty of linguists who argue that one term or another is a better one.

CJ

AlpheccaStars · Answer

See definition entry #7 http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Less?r=66

Square · Answer

Thank you, CJ and AS.

@CJ:
Actually, I don't try to find "the correct label" at all. Just try to understand how it makes sense grammatically.
You said that "more of a" and "less of a" are like adverbs of degree. Could you tell me which part of speech does it modify in the sentence below?

Flying is less of a risk than driving.

I'd agree with AS that "less" is a noun there which means "a smaller amount or quantity".
However, I was also told that "less of" is a determiner there and that makes sense too.

CalifJim · Answer

SquareYou said that "more of a" and "less of a" are like adverbs of degree. Could you tell me which part of speech does it modify in the sentence below?Flying is less of a risk than driving.

less of a modifies (and I use 'modify' loosely) risk. As you mention later in your post, 'determiner' is another way of looking at it, specifically a quantifier, which is one kind of determiner. Determiners don't modify the way adjectives and adverbs do, so that's why I said I was using the word 'modify' loosely.

Your sentence boils down to Flying is less risky than driving, a simple comparison.

CJ

Is less of a risk

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