| 词组 | than |
| 释义 | than 1. A dispute over whether than is a preposition or a conjunction has been going on now for more than two centuries. It is one portion of the price we pay for the 18th-century assumption that the parts of speech of Latin and Greek are readily applicable to English, an assumption that continues to gain uncritical acceptance to this day. There were two sides to the question right from the beginning. Lowth 1762 held than to be a conjunction, and the case of a following pronoun to be determined by its relation to a verb understood. Thus, "thou art wiser than I [am]" and "you love him more than [you love] me." Since the second construction is fairly infrequent, Lowth's analysis was essentially a prescription for than plus the nominative. Priestley, at least as early as the 1769 edition cited by Leonard 1929, considered than a preposition and thought the objective case proper. He suspected that others' preference for the nominative was based not on English, but on a dubious analogy with Latin. Campbell 1776, however, followed Lowth, and expressed some surprise at Priestley's views. He granted Priestley the "colloquial dialect" for which he—Campbell—had very little use indeed. Lindley Murray 1795 also followed Lowth, and so have most grammarians since. Lowth's prescription for the nominative had one important exception: he held than whom to be correct. His explanation for this single exception—that who has reference only to its antecedent and not to an understood verb or preposition—is grammatically unimpressive, but the real reason may have been the authority of Milton's use of than whom in Paradise Lost (1667), which he quotes: • Which when Beelzebub perceived—than whom, Satan except, none higher sat—with grave Aspect he rose (Milton, however, did not originate than whom; the OED and Hall 1917 have earlier examples.) Lindley Murray accepted Lowth's defense of than whom, as have many succeeding generations of grammarians and commentators. As a result, the consensus of the critics has reached these inconsistent conclusions: than is a conjunction and in ordinary comparisons must be fol lowed by the nominative case of the pronoun, but than whom is standard—although some later commentators allow it to be clumsy. It is hard to avoid the conclusion, however, that if than whom is indeed standard, than must be a preposition as well as a conjunction. And if it is indeed a preposition, why may it not be followed by me or him or her or us or them, where the grammar of the sentence calls for the objective case, as well as by whom? No amount of tortuous reasoning can answer this question satisfactorily, for there really is no reason. Leonard 1929 mentions a grammarian named William Ward who in 1765 had the answer to the whole problem. He allowed than to be both a conjunction and a preposition, explaining that when it is thought of as a conjunction, clauses or substantives in the nominative case follow it, and when it is thought of as a preposition, the objective case is used. Ward's explanation covered actual usage perfectly, but it was probably too common-sensical—not sufficiently absolutist—to prevail. As far as we know, Ward had no followers, although Hall 1917 cites one or two late-19th-century grammarians who employed the same line of reasoning. Than has been a conjunction since Old English, but it has only been a preposition since the 16th century. From the 16th century on, writers have used it as a preposition when it suited their fancy. Shakespeare did: • A man no mightier than thyself or me In personal action, yet prodigious grown And fearful, as these strange eruptions are.—Julius Caesar, 1600 So the preposition had some two centuries of at least occasional use behind it before the 18th-century grammarians began their wrangling. Here are a few 18th-cen-tury examples: • For thou art a girl as much brighter than her As he was a poet sublimer than me—Matthew Prior, "Better Answer," 1718 (OED) • And, though by Heaven's severe Decree She suffers hourly more than me ...—Jonathan Swift, "To Stella, Visiting Me in Sickness," 1720 • No man had ever more discernment than him, in finding out the ridiculous —Samuel Johnson, A Dissertation on the Greek Comedy (in Hall 1873) • A woman does not complain that her brother, who is younger than her, gets their common father's estate —James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, 1791 (in Jespersen 1909-49, vol. 7) And here are some more recent examples, a few of them from speech but others from writing of several kinds: • Though he was thirty years or so older than us, he tolerated our company —Oliver St. John Gogarty, It Isn't This Time of Year At All!, 1954 • Our consul general here is a Columbus man named Streeper, about two years younger than me —James Thurber, letter, 1 June 1954 • Why should a man be better than me because he's richer than me —William Faulkner, 7 Mar. 1957, in Faulkner in the University, 1959 • ... Mr. Ballast, whose aim is to bring down the captain, or get higher than him —Richard R. Lingeman, N.Y. Times Mag., 10 July 1966 • Macmillan was nine or ten years older than me — Lord Butler of Saffron Waldon, BBC interview, 8 Aug. 1966 • ... but I was a better Senator McCarthy than him — Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days, 1985 • LoPresti, who was a few years older than me —Tip O'Neill with William Novak, Man of the House, 1987 The than whom construction, against which only Baker 1770 seems to have objected, has continued beyond Milton's time: • The King of Dikes, than whom no Sluice of Mud With deeper Sable blots the Silver Flood—Alexander Pope, The Dunciad, 1728 • I was on Montmartre not long ago with my dear Walter Duranty, than whom no one can have a warmer spot in my foolish heart —Alexander Wooll-cott, letter, 5 Sept. 1918 • T. S. Eliot, than whom nobody could have been more insularly English —Anthony Burgess, Saturday Rev., 28 Apr. 1979 And reflexive pronouns (see myself) have also been used after than: • ... a man who we know was last year no better than ourselves —Samuel Johnson, quoted in James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, 1791 • ... Mr. Rushworth could hardly be more impatient for the marriage than herself —Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, 1814 The conjunction, however, is more common than the preposition, at least in print, and is not at all uncommon even in such informal contexts as letters: • ... you will be able to determine better than I —William Hazlitt, letter, 30 Aug. 1805 • ... so you are no better off than I —Emily Dickinson, letter, 6 Nov. 1847 • Nearly three years older than I —Henry Adams, letter, 23 Nov. 1859 • ... someone else who can take it less seriously than I —Robert Frost, letter, 2 Feb. 1920 • ... there were profounder asses in the world than we— The Intimate Notebooks of George Jean Nathan, 1932 • ... he is twenty years younger than I —John O'Hara, letter, 8 Nov. 1962 • ... Uncle Etch's oldest son, much older than I — Russell Baker, Growing Up, 1982 • ... others might be affected even more than he — Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days, 1985 Even Lowth's conjunction with the objective turns up once in a while: • My experience is larger, and my comment says more about me than them —James Baldwin, quoted in N.Y. Times Book Rev., 21 May 1984 To conclude: William Ward had it right in 1765. Than is both a preposition and a conjunction. In spite of much opinion to the contrary, the preposition has never been wrong. In current usage than is more often a conjunction than a preposition; than whom is pretty much limited to writing; me after the preposition is more common than the other objective-case pronouns; and the preposition is more common in speech than in edited prose. You have the same choice Shakespeare did—you can use than either way. But the closer your writing is to speech, the more likely you are to choose the preposition. 2. There are a number of syntactic blends involving than, some of which are separately treated in this book: see as good or better than; hardly...than; scarcely...than. Priestley 1798 has an example of scarcely ... than from Smollett, which makes that construction older than it would appear from OED evidence. Harper 1985 mentions a couple of instances of twice as many ... than, which would seem to be compounded of more ... than and twice as many ... as. We have also found this construction with much: • ... twice as much office space is being built this year in the suburbs around New York City than in Manhattan —N.Y. Times, 21 July 1985 See syntactic blend. 3. Than, then. A number of handbooks are at pains to point out that than and then are different words. This is simply a spelling problem, of course. Actually, then was occasionally used as a variant spelling of than in centuries past: • ... there are fewe Universities that have lesse faultes then Oxford —John Lyly, Euphues. The Anatomy of Wit, 1578 • Our composition must bee more accurate in the beginning and end, then in the midst —Ben Jonson, Timber: or, Discoveries, before 1637 This spelling is no longer acceptable, than any See any 3. |
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