He knows better than to lend her the money.

[xxwzs]

Here is a sentence.
"He knows better than to lend her the money."
"He" is the subject of the sentence and "knows" the predicate. Maybe someone will say "knows better than to lend her the money" is the whole predicate.
I'd like to know what elements the "better than" and "to lend her the money" separately are.
I am here waiting for your reply. Deep thanks to you.

 

[TheParser]

***** NOT A TEACHER *****


I have found some information that I am delighted to share with anyone who is interested in this topic.

1. Some sources simply say that an infinitive may be joined to a conjunction:

"He knows better than [conjunction] to lend her money." [ infinitival phrase]

2. Some sources say that it must be some kind of ellipsis.

a. Some sources think that it may be a shorter way of saying "He knows better than [it is] to lend her money."

b. Some sources think that it may be a shorter way of saying "He knows better than to lend her money [is good]."

Of course, I do not know who is correct.

I am eager to know what others think.

 

[Matthew Wai]

I am eager to know what others think.

I think the idiom can hardly be parsed, so even a well-versed parser like James may fail to do it well, but I am not a teacher.

 

[SoothingDave]

If someone forced me to do this, I would probably say that "better" is an adverb modifying "knows."

"Than" is a preposition.

"to lend her money" is the object of the preposition. A verb infinitive phrase acting as a noun.

Then "money" is the direct object of the verb "lend" and "her" is the indirect object.

 

[TheParser]

***** NOT A TEACHER *****


I think that I have found the definitive answer, Mr. Wai.

A great scholar who has written a two-volume history of the development of the English language says this:

"I knew better than to mention it."

1. This is not an elliptical sentence.

2. This is an abridged sentence.

3. The difference is that "elliptical" means that you can fill in missing words; "abridged" means that the idea of the sentence is expressed in another manner.

4. The scholar says that the comparative clause "is often abridged to an infinitive phrase with to when the subject of the principal proposition [ "I"] can serve also as the subject of the infinitive."

a. That is to say, the subject of "to mention it" is "I."

5. This abridged sentence is a shorter version of the complete comparative sentence. (Since he does not give the complete comparative sentence, your humble servant shall not guess what it is.)

6. As you say, Mr. Wai, it is perhaps easier in 2015 to just call it an "idiom."

a. But, as the scholar points out, it can be parsed -- if one (like him) knows enough of the historical development of the language. Perhaps someone does. It would be exciting if someone could give us the full comparative sentence.


Source: George O. Curme's 1931 masterpiece A Grammar of the English Language (Volume II, page 304).

 

[Eckaslike]

I know people are probably going to disagree with this, but here goes anyway.

If forced to make an unabridged version my natural reaction would be to say:

"He knows better than [that than] to lend her the money".

This makes it instantly clear why "that than" has been dropped from the idiom.

 

[Matthew Wai]

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/know-better-than-to-do-sth
Having read the above, I think it might be 'He knows (that not to lend her money is) better than to lend her money', but I am not a teacher.

 

[TheParser]

***** NOT A TEACHER *****


Another great scholar (whose first language was Danish) seems to agree with Soothing Dave's thoughtful analysis.

Dr. Otto Jespersen says the following:

1. The only preposition that is nowadays [written before World War II] used regularly before a to-infinitive is "about": ""He was about to retire."

2. The bare infinitive OFTEN [my emphasis] follows "but," "except," and "save" "because these words are conjunctions just as well as prepositions." [my emphasis] His example: "He could not choose but laugh." [Only my note: I emphasized "often," for I believe that some native speakers might prefer "to laugh" in his sentence.]

3. Then Dr. Jespersen adds (without further comment):

"After than we have to." His example: "He knew better than to interfere in our affairs." [I assume that he is parsing "than" in that sentence as a preposition. Maybe the key lesson for learners is that there are often many ways to analyze a sentence in English.]


Source: Essentials of English Grammar (1933). It is a short version of material in his many scholarly volumes, which (of course) I have never read. Unlike Dr. Curme (who had two volumes to trace the historical development of the language), Dr. Jespersen simply describes the language as it was at the time of his writing. He does not have space to trace the origins of today's "idioms."

 

[TheParser]

***** NOT A TEACHER *****

Thank you so much, Eckaslike, for your very thoughtful comments.

Although your sentence may not be exactly the complete sentence from which "He knows better than to lend her money" comes, that is certainly the idea.

Here is a sentence quoted by Dr. Curme as an example of the comparative clause of "olden" days:

"Nothing could be more disagreeable to me than that [my emphasis] I should have to do that [would be]." (It was the scholar, not I, who added the the words "would be" in the brackets.)

I have been googling like mad to find examples of older English using the full comparative clause and their abridged versions, but my poor searching skills have prevented me so far from yelling "Eureka!"

 

[Eckaslike]

Thanks, TheParser,

I grew up in the south west of England, and I think many old forms of speech are probably preserved there.
http://tinyurl.com/ooa2rsu

It's probably dialect, but we would say:

"He knows better than that, than to lend her money".

But even then, the word "that" could be seen as an abridgment of the context being discussed.

"He knows better than that, [from previous experience,] than to lend her money [again]".

We would, of course, still be happy to use "He knows better than to lend her money", because as Piscean said, this has really become idiomatic.

I'm afraid I wouldn't even know where to start looking, but I expect you might need go back a long way, possibly even to Ben Johnson's era in the 1600s.
http://tinyurl.com/pf6jcv5