My $0.02 is this:
Ms. Smith's class has FIVE MORE students than Mr. Mason's.
'five' plays a restrictive role on 'more', a word from the same ilk: quantifiers, determiners.
Let me see what we have here. Tests! :up: Tests are good!
Ms. Smith's class has FIVE MORE students than Mr. Mason's. :tick:
Ms. Smith's class has FIVE students than Mr. Mason's. :cross:
Ms. Smith's class has MORE students than Mr. Mason's. :tick:
Ms. Smith's class has students than Mr. Mason's. :cross:
Ms. Smith's class has FIVE MORE students than Mr. Mason's (class has students).
more than ... My gut feeling supported by some flimsy empirical evidence suggests to me that 'more' and 'than' work in tandem? What do they do? They conjoin clauses in a comparative structure as one paired conjunction; they are something similar to both ... and, either ... or, etc.
Now, what is the matter in the following story?
He has more than five students.
He has six students.
He has
more than five but
less than ten students.
The coordination test suggests the bolded group of words belong together thus: more than five = DP (determiner phrase)
than = linker (link determiners)
This structure is different than that you proposed for consideration. It was just a side-thought. Never mind. Back to track: