[log in to unmask]" type="cite">

    Here's a functional observation to balance out the technical views.
   If we compare two things, we have to know how we are comparing them,
either explicitly or implicitly.  If I say "The day is longer than a
hot dog," it's confusing because 'day" is a time reference and "hot
dog" is spatial (in the way we understand length in relation to it.) If
the comparison is naturally parallel ("The day was longer than a
sociology lecture"), the reader/listener adds the missing information
quite easily, so easily in fact that the clause like nature of the
meaning (comparison) is not fully conscious. (The time dragged. It was
boring.)

   He's a bigger fool than the president (very clear) >
   He's a bigger fool than a corkscrew (not so clear)
   He's more foolish than a corkscrew is twisted (very clear)
   He's more angry than an SUV driver (not so clear)
   He's more angry than an SUV driver at a gas pump (very clear)

   The technical classification seems to come into play with prescriptive
grammarians who want to limit how we use "like" and "as" and so on.
When we see comparatives, we naturally add information to complete the
meaning.  This is true, certainly, of pretty much any statement: it
can't happen without the participation of the reader/listener.  It may
seem like a side issue, but that's the kind of attention that seems
more useful to me.

Craig

Bruce,
  

(I've changed the coding of this from HTML to plain text because the
system was putting part of it into an attachment, and the ATEG server was
blocking the message because of that.  This means that the OED entries
below have lost some special characters.)

That's a very attractive analysis.  The words have a common history in
that the -ther, which is the historical suffix of which -er results from
metanalysis, is common to rather and another, as well as to other words
listed in the OED etymology I've copied below.  Of course, this is
etymology, not synchronic grammar, and, while grammatical behavior
reflects historical development, we can't rely on historical arguments to
describe how the grammar works today, only to explain how it got this
way.  I've also copied in the etymology of rather.

OED Online etymology of "other"

[Cognate with Old Frisian ther, r, Middle Dutch ander (Dutch ander), Old
Saxon ar, er, odar (Middle Low German ander), Old High German andar, ander
(Middle High German ander, German ander), Old Icelandic annarr, Old
Swedish annar (Swedish annan), Old Danish anner (Danish anden), Gothic
anar < the same Indo-European base as late Sanskrit antara difference,
(rarely) different from, other, Younger Avestan antara the other of two,
Lithuanian antras second, other, Latvian otrs second, other, and prob.
classical Latin alter < the Indo-European base of Sanskrit anya other,
different, Avestan aniia other, different + an Indo-European comparative
suffix also represented by Sanskrit -tara, ancient Greek -, classical
Latin -ter, English -ther (in NETHER adv.1, WHETHER pron., WITHER a.,
AFTER adv.), and the Old Irish equitive suffix -ithir.
  The Indo-European suffix seen in this word originally had a spatial
sense, expressing the contrast between two or more things with regard to
their location.

OED Online etymology of "rather"

[f. RATHE adv.; rare in OE. in place of hræd RAD a.1, but common after c
1400. For the uses of the compar. and superl. see RATHER a., RATHEST a.] 
Note that I categorically deny inviting anyone to commit the etymological
fallacy on the basis of this.
Herb

Subject: Re: conjunction or preposition

I appologize for my inappropriate response the question about the
comparative, which I took to be about ellipsis.  I like to present the
"-er + than" construction to my (ESL) students in connection with other
similar constructions. 
 
The first is with certain adjectives: "different + than" and "additional +
than."  In the case of "different" we have the option of using "from" when
we desire the preposition.   In the case of "additional" the option is to
use the preposition "to".  The possiblity of these complements tends to
make us want to see the "than" of "-er + than" as a preposition. 
The second parallel that can help in understanding the structure is the
set of adverbs whose normal complements are clauses or reduced clauses:
"so + that", "too + for-to" and "enough + for-to."  The complement clauses
then tend to be make us want to see the same structure with "-er +
than".  
 
In some cases one analysis is appropriate and in another, the other. 
 
Let me also share the following notion about the comparative ending. 
Notice that "rather", "another", and "other" share the above duality of
analysis, even though there are no corresponding positive forms for them. 
In this way they seem to be partaking of the adjective+complement
structure.  This could also be said for "more" except that we may take its
positive as "much" or "many".  Similarly "less" can be construed to have a
positive in (an elided) "much" or "many" which it modifies.  This again
opens the question of using ellipsis to understand the structures.   
 
1) Her stepsister had less dainty feet than Cinderella (had). 
[comparative adverb to "dainty" with complement]
2) She had less sand in her shoes than her stepsister (had).  [comparative
adverb to "much" with complement]
3) She tried less to get her shoes on than her stepsister (did).
[comparative adverb to the adverb of degree "much"]
 
Bruce
 

    

"Stahlke, Herbert F.W." <[log in to unmask]> 04/25/06 11:04 AM >>>
          

And we have a good example of why there is this tendency.  For a lot of
grammar teaching purposes I would treat the sentence as Phil has, but
for some purposes, including some pedagogical, I also want to be able to
explain that the "more ... than" dependency isn't just a fact about
particular words but follows from deeper syntactic and semantic
principles.

I think this speaks to part of what we as a group are trying to provide:
a view of language that allows us to provide explanations that are
appropriate to need and to audience.

Herb

Subject: Re: conjunction or preposition

I think there is a tendency to overthink these things in this group. 

You can say

  More pickup trucks are sold

and you see that "more" is an adjective

The addition is of "than sedan" is a very ordinary addition of a
prepositional phrase. 

you cannot say

  Pi! ckup trucks than sedands are sold

which tells you that there is a dependent relation between "than" and
either "-er" and "more" or "less".  This dependency is what strikes
people as strange and is the only thing that is abberrant in the
sentence. 

Phil Bralich


-----Original Message-----
    

From: "Paul T. Wilson" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Apr 25, 2006 8:43 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: conjunction or preposition

Though it's idiosyncratic, it seems to me that the concept of
coordinating conjunctions might explain this more elegantly.

Both pickup trucks and sedans are sold in some areas of California.

Either pickup trucks or sedans are sold in some areas of California.

I understand that

(a) *more* can be adj., adv., or noun and *than* is typically a
conjunction or preposition,  and

(b)  "more . . . than" specifies a difference in quantity that "both .
      

.
    

. and" and "either . . . or" do not.

However, together, "more . . . than" seems to function the same way as
the coordinating conjunctions.

So I posit that *than* promotes *more* - functionally - to the status
      

of
    

a conjunction.


Jeanne Rodgers wrote:
      

How is "than" functioning in the following sentence, as a
        

subordinating conjunction introducing an unconventionally placed
ellipitical clause or as a preposition?
    

More pickup trucks than sedans are sold in some areas of California.

Jeanne Rodgers
CSU, Sacramento
  
        

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