I wonder why it's not correct to say 'quite less/more' and you should say instead 'quite a bit less/more'.
For instance, when you are having lunch - someone else is helping you and he/she asks you - 'Are you having seconds?' - you say - 'Yes, but quite a bit less' (why not 'quite less'?).
You can say 'much more/less', or 'much prettier'; and also 'quite pretty' (meaning rather), but 'quite prettier'??? (why not?)
I think this may be one of those situations in which grammatical analysis doesn't help too much.
My initial thoughts:
Wherever you can use
"a bit" you can also use
"quite a bit" and
"a tiny/little bit". In terms of magnitude, the order is:
"a tiny bit" "a little bit" < "a bit" < "quite a bit". So
"quite a bit" means
"a bit plus some more". In this case, the word
"quite" is part of the expression, you should not regard it as the same in
"quite pretty".
True, we don't say
"quite prettier" - we would say
"quite a bit/lot prettier". I am trying to decide why...
Using
"cold" as a simpler example:
extremely cold - very cold - quite cold - fairly cold - rather cold - a bit cold - quite a bit cold(?)
extremely colder -
very colder -
quite colder - fairly colder(?) - rather colder - a bit colder - quite a bit colder
So, the extremes cannot be used with comparatives - that would be
"highly, very, totally, incredibly, perfectly" and others. This is not really grammar, just "common sense" - I suspect that the same would be true in other languages - in Spanish,
"totalmente mas frio" wouldn't make sense.
Now, the special case is the word
"quite" - in its original meaning it was an extreme.
"Quite perfect" meant
"totally perfect" and
"quite pretty" meant
"totally/perfectly pretty". In modern use, the meaning of
"quite" has become distorted so that it now tends to mean
"fairly",
"averagely". But, it seems that we still follow the "logic" of treating it as an extreme when using comparatives. So, that's why we don't normally say
"quite prettier" nor
"quite less", but do say
"quite a bit prettier",
"quite a bit more/less". I think
