"No less an authority"

Status
Not open for further replies.

TheParser

VIP Member
Joined
Dec 8, 2009
Member Type
Other
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
On the "Ask a Teacher" forum, a member asked a question concerning this kind of sentence:

"I heard the news from no less an authority than Mr. Smith."

Would you please tell me how our two heroes would have diagrammed this toughie?

Thanks a million!
 

philo2009

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 16, 2009
Member Type
Academic
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
Japan
On the "Ask a Teacher" forum, a member asked a question concerning this kind of sentence:

"I heard the news from no less an authority than Mr. Smith."

Would you please tell me how our two heroes would have diagrammed this toughie?

Thanks a million!

To my mind, the sentence is elliptical for

I heard the news from someone who was no less an authority than Mr. Smith.

whereby AdvP 'no less' is an adjunct to 'was'.
 

Frank Antonson

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 7, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
"I heard the news from no less (of) an authority than Mr. Smith (is an authority).

"less...than" is correlative adverb". This is what I think R-K would say. Ueff! I'm rusty!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top