Diagramming Kipling CAT 2

[Frank Antonson]

You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din! ("Gunga Din")

 

[Frank Antonson]

 

[corum]

With all due respect, I can't agree with your diagram, Frank. The reason is this: "than" is a coordinating conjunction. What does it coordinate? Clauses.

[You're a better man] than [I am].

As 'than' links clauses, I would draw the conjunction line between the main verbs.

 

[Frank Antonson]

You may be right. Perhaps I was a bit hasty. But, isn't "than" rather a correlative conjunction linking "better" with an understood "good"? That is what I was thinking. "Than" by itself doesn't work as a conjunction. What do you think?

 

[corum]

"good" is not understood by me. Conjunctions can connect words, phrases, clauses. If 'than' connect words, which two words are those? Phrases? Which? 'than' connects clauses, IMO.

 

[Frank Antonson]

You're a better man than I am (a good man), Gunga Din.

I think that the "than" connects the comparative morpheme of "better" with the understood "good".

 

[Frank Antonson]

It would be like "You are more intelligent than I am intelligent, Corum".

 

[corum]

It would be like "You are more intelligent than I am intelligent, Corum".

Or I am better at intellectual posturing than you are good.

I will come back. Now I am thinking. ;-)

 

[corum]

I can't come up with an argument to blow you out of water.

https://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/blow+out+of+the+water.html

 

[Frank Antonson]

You SO remind me of Kondorosi!

It warms my heart.

I always liked the idea of reincarnation.

 

[corum]

Do you know this one?

Definition of come/crawl out of the woodwork from Cambridge Dictionary Online: Free English Dictionary and Thesaurus

 

[Frank Antonson]

Well, I know the expression. Is something crawling out of the woodwork?

I am enough of a carpenter to know that all kinds of amazing things can come out of the woodwork -- like, once, my grandfather's report card when I was moving the house that he had lived in as a little boy.

Frank

 

[corum]

Was it not this?

;-)

 

[Frank Antonson]

It looked just like that!

How did you come up with that????

Frank

PS I am not sure that grades were as high.