Than usual

Question

The word "than" is a conjunction which we use in the following sentences:

- to link two sentence elements of the same grammatical class
Mary is richer than I.
He ate more than I did.

- to link a dependent clause to an independent clause
John walks faster than he did before.

Sometimes, "than" is regarded as a preposition and the following writing is accepted.
Mary is richer than me. (ME as an object of preposition)

However, in the sentence " He ate more than usual.", "usual" is an adjective. How can an adjective be placed after the conjunction/preposition in this case.

MrGuedes · Accepted Answer

AnonymousSometimes, "than" is regarded as a preposition and the following writing is accepted.
Mary is richer than me. (ME as an object of preposition)

However, in the sentence " He ate more than usual.", "usual" is an adjective. How can an adjective be placed after the conjunction/preposition in this case?

I think that adjective is already there: "He ate more than usual." In this sentence, "usual" is the adjective. It is the same as saying "He ate more than he usually does" or "He ate more than it is usual for him (to eat)".

Note that many grammarians consider the sentence "Mary is richer than me" to be incorrect, with the correct form being "Mary is richer than I", since "than" would be a conjunction, and the full form would be "Mary is richer than I am". I personally consider that this construction is indeed the one that makes the most sense, and I favour using "I" there as the subject, but using "me" is also very common in informal contexts. Read the usage notes on the following dictionary entries for a discussion about this: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/than and http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/personal-pronoun?q=personal+pronoun.

Philip Yeung · Answer

I probably made a mistake in the question raised.  My question should be " Why is an adjective placed after a conjunction. Your explanation suggests that the part after "than" is simplified to leave only the adjective "usual".  This is also my thinking before, but I just want to have a confirmation from a grammatical perspective.

RandomGuy · Answer

1. Mary is richer than I.
2. Mary is richer than me.
3. John walks faster than he did before.
4. He ate more than I did.
5. He ate more than usual.

I think than is best analyzed as a preposition in all cases, taking as complement an NP in [1]-[2], a dependent clause in [3]-[4], and an AdjP in [5].

(In [1] the complement of than might alternatively be regarded as an elliptical clause.)

MrGuedes · Answer

Philip YeungI probably made a mistake in the question raised. My question should be "Why is an adjective placed after a conjunction?". Your explanation suggests that the part after "than" is simplified to leave only the adjective "usual". This is also my thinking before, but I just want to have a confirmation from a grammatical perspective.

And I thinking that's exactly it. The full sentence, if you interpret "than" as a conjunction, would be "He ate more than it is usual", and it is shortened to "He ate more than usual", in the same way that "Mary is richer than I am" would be shortened to "Mary is richer than I". I think it makes sense.

But if you want more "official" confirmation, don't take my word for it! I'm nothing but a mere high schooler, studying Science, who is interested in grammar and languages, particularly English. I have no official formation whatsoever.

Than usual

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