Linguistic constructions such as the English a ~Mary is cleverer than/as clever as Johna (TM) reveal a number of non-trivial problems, particularly if one includes Italian, which the present study resolves with the aid of a new grammatical model. What is new for Italian is the extension of the perspective beyond the comparative to other types of comparative construction, which are examined here systematically and in detail for the first time. It is shown that apparently differing constructions can actually be described on the syntactic level in a unitary manner.