ABSTRACTThe paper studies Russian metalinguistic comparatives. Specifically, it argues that Russian exhibits three single meta-comparatives (skoree ‘sooner’, bol′se ‘more’, and lucse ‘better’, lit.), which are derived as a result of grammaticalisation of corresponding standard comparatives and three double meta-comparatives (skoree bol′se, bol′se skoree, and skoree lucse). From a morphological and syntactic point of view, these meta-comparatives are quite distinct from standard comparatives. Unlike standard comparatives, they have only synthetic forms, are ungrammatical with Genitive and show prosodic restrictions and linearly syntactic preferences. Moreover, the meta-comparatives are divided into two major groups: skoree, bol′se, skoree bol′se, bol′se skoree vs. lucse, skoree lucse. Each of these two groups imposes specific restrictions on a syntactic category and/or grammatical form of the two compared phrases. Last but not least, due to a relatively free combination of skoree with other single meta-com...