[Grammar] "Than" in elliptical clauses

[DANAU]

Hi.

#1 I am older than he (I am older than he is old).
#2 She is taller than I (she is taller than I am tall).
#3 He is a stronger man than I (He is stronger than I am strong).
#4 I spent more time with you than him (I spent more time with you than I spent time with him).

Please help me to check if I have used the correct pronouns for the sentences above.
I understand that "than" can sometimes be used as preposition in spoken form, but most books on styles
are recommending to keep it as a conjunction, and so the need to avoid objective pronoun following the word "than".

 

[GoesStation]

Grammarians created a distinction that doesn't really exist when they decreed that "me", "him", etc. can only be object pronouns. Nearly all native speakers use them, not the subject pronoun, in all of those sentences.

 

[DANAU]

Thanks, GoesStation.

To confirm, does it mean I can also replace “he”
and “I” in sentence #1,2 and 3 with “him” and “me”?

 

[GoesStation]

To confirm, does it mean I can also replace “he”
and “I” in sentence #1,2 and 3 with “him” and “me”?

Native speakers would probably do so. Your teacher may adhere to rules that were taught for decades and tell you that would be wrong.

 

[PeterCW]

Thanks, GoesStation.

To confirm, does it mean I can also replace “he”
and “I” in sentence #1,2 and 3 with “him” and “me”?

When I was young using "me" was quote common but considered both "lower class" and "incorrect". Even now I would avoid using "me" and would probably recast the whole sentence to avoid ending it with "I" which sounds, to a modern ear, a little pedantic. As GoesStation says, your teacher may disagree.

 

[TheParser]

NOT A TEACHER


And sometimes it would be unwise to use "correct" English. A group of big, tough guys are having a conversation.

Tom: I am older than him.
George: Yeah, that's right. And I'm smarter than her.
Ralph: I'm richer than them.
Tony: Well, nobody is more handsome than I.

I have a strong feeling that Tom, George, and Ralph would all look at Tony and think to themselves: "Why is he speaking like that?"

 

[PaulMatthews]

[1] I am older than he. (I am older than he is old).
[2] She is taller than I (she is taller than I am tall).
[3] He is a stronger man than I (He is stronger than I am strong).
[4] I spent more time with you than him (I spent more time with you than I spent time with him).

All your examples assume that the complement of "than" is a clause reduced to single element.

An alternative analysis is to say that the complement is not a clause but simply a noun phrase, that it functions directly, immediately, as complement of "than". In this analysis, the complement of "than" would have to be an accusative pronoun, "him" in [1] and [4] and "me" in [2] and [3].

This would obviously be the simpler of the two constructions, but it is by no means clear-cut which is the better analysis.

There are two bits of evidence that favour the immediate constituent analysis:

1. There are unquestionably some constructions where a single element following "than" is an immediate constituent, not a reduced clause, such as in He is inviting more people than just us. Here, the underlined element can't be expanded into a clause, cf. *He is inviting more people than he is inviting just us.

2. The optional occurrence of reflexive pronouns, as in He married a woman fifteen years older than him/himself, where it is not possible add a verb (*"than himself was"), which suggests that the pronoun is an immediate constituent.

It's an interesting but not conclusive argument that I think needs more research.