Please Reed-Kellogg "MORE"

[TheParser]

A member recently posted this sentence:

It was more of a mistake than a crime.

Would you please draw a diagram for me?

In particular, I am interested in the role of "more."

Thank you VERY much.

[Frank Antonson]

[TheParser]

Thanks SO much.

[Frank Antonson]

There are quite a few indefinite pronouns. People usually think of the personal pronouns and forget the others.

I made up a chart (which can be found on the following webpage

Official Site for Competitive Sentence Diagramming ;) - Home on which they are organized.

Frank

[chester_100]

It's an interesting issue, because diagramming expressions and idioms may be challenging sometimes; mostly because they don't follow the usual grammatical patterns.

To be more of sth than sth is a fixed expression. Something like a formula. Like Frank, I believe it's a pronoun. Through simplification of structures, we can analyze them:
1. If more occurs right before an adjective, it should be an adverb of degree.
2. In your example, however, it's followed by a preposition:
-Dr. James from X university.
-The door of the class.
These examples clearly show that the position occupied by a word before a preposition should be a NP (noun phrase).

Since more is not a noun, it should be pronoun. This technique is referred to as analogy. Of course, we must be very watchful not to make false analogies:
-He took the ball perfectlyfrom John.
The occurrence of the adverb before the preposition in this sentence shouldn't confuse us.

Good luck

[corum]

[oves]

It's an interesting issue, because diagramming expressions and idioms may be challenging sometimes; mostly because they don't follow the usual grammatical patterns.

To be more of sth than sth is a fixed expression. Something like a formula. Like Frank, I believe it's a pronoun. Through simplification of structures, we can analyze them:
1. If more occurs right before an adjective, it should be an adverb of degree.
2. In your example, however, it's followed by a preposition:
-Dr. James from X university.
-The door of the class.
These examples clearly show that the position occupied by a word before a preposition should be a NP (noun phrase).

Since more is not a noun, it should be pronoun. This technique is referred to as analogy. Of course, we must be very watchful not to make false analogies:
-He took the ball perfectlyfrom John.
The occurrence of the adverb before the preposition in this sentence shouldn't confuse us.

Good luck

Hallo,
Can I ask If I understand correctly?

"It was more of a mistake than a crime" is similar to " It was rather a mistake than a crime".

This expression is very interesting and I would like to know if there is a book with fixed expressions.

Thanks

[Frank Antonson]

Those two sentences are not that similar because "rather" cannot stand on its own a a pronoun. You could stop the sentence as "It was more."

Off hand, I am not sure what to do with your "rather" sentence.

I'll have to think. Anyone want to go first?

[oves]

And would it be OK to say?

It was a mistake rather than a crime.

Is it also OK to say?

It was more a mistake than a crime.


Thanks

[Frank Antonson]

For your first example --It was rather a mistake than a crime. -- I think you could substitute "It was a mistake instead of a crime". Then "instead of" would simply be a phrasal preposition. May "rather...than" could be considered as a correlative preposition. I am not sure if I have ever heard of such a thing, but it seems like it could work.