Explaining the Explanation Regarding "THAN HE"

My post about the use of than as a preposition left a reader wondering about some of the grammatical terms used in the explanation:

I’m…a bit unsure about the terms ‘demonstrative pronoun’, ‘conjunction’ and ‘preposition’ in this context. Could you please explain this a little more?

The terms being asked about are from this statement:

The OED has listings for than as a demonstrative pronoun and as a conjunction, but not as a preposition. However, it does include a note about the use of than as a preposition and states that this use “is now considered incorrect.”

demonstrative pronoun

English has four demonstrative pronouns: this, that, these, and those. Like any pronoun, a demonstrative pronoun stands for a noun. At the same time, it serves to point out or separate the noun it stands for from other objects:
This is the one I meant.
Those are yours.
May I have these?
Give me that!

The OED entry for than as a “demonstrative pronoun” documents an obsolete use in which than was used where we now use that.

preposition

English has many prepositions. They are those little words that show a connection of some sort between a noun that follows it and another word in the sentence:
That is the pen of my aunt. The preposition of relates “aunt” to “pen,” indicating ownership.
The cat sat on the mat. The preposition on relates “mat” to “sat,” indicating a spatial relationship.

The noun that follows a preposition is said to be “governed” by it.
I sat by my father. The noun “father” is governed by the preposition “by.”

When the word governed is a pronoun, the pronoun will be in the objective case: I sat by him. Him is the object form of he.

conjunction

Conjunctions are used to connect clauses or sentences:
You may go with your friends after you have finished your homework. After is a conjunction introducing the second clause which tells “when” about the verb may go in the main clause.

Conjunctions are used to co-ordinate words in the same clause:
Take your books and your papers. And joins book and papers, words of equal importance.

The conjunction than is used to introduce comparative clauses. The problem in the “than he/than him” controversy is that the second clause often remains unexpressed:
Charlie is taller than I.
You are kinder than he.

English speakers of a certain age have learned to provide the missing clause mentally:
Charlie is taller than I [am tall].
You are kinder than he [is kind].

Reader Rob Baker defends the use of the object form “him” after “than” in certain contexts:

Sometimes “than him” is correct:
She likes Johnny Depp more than he (does).
She likes Johnny Depp more than him (more than she likes him).

This is a valid defense of “than him.” However, the “correctness” of the second example depends entirely upon context. The speaker’s meaning of the “him” would be clear enough in conversation, but in writing, it would be ambiguous. It would also sound like nonstandard English.

Another reader, Gloson, offers this suggestion:

Just don’t use “than he” or “than him”. Simply just use “than he is”.

This is sound advice. In writing especially, if a few extra words are needed to make one’s meaning clear, why not use them? For example, the ambiguity of “She likes Johnny Depp better than him,” can be avoided by being specific: She likes Johnny Depp better than she likes Orlando Bloom.

The fact that this is my second post to include a discussion of “than he” vs “than him” should be a clue that this distinction is in the process of breaking down. Until than/him becomes universally acceptable, writers are wise to consider their audience before following the conjunction than with an object pronoun.

SUMBER

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Tips Menulis: Taller Than He

A reader questions the use of “than him” in the following statement:

From 1970 on, his secretary Marie-José Gros-Dubois, twenty years younger than him, was faithfully near his side.

Asks the reader,

Is this correct?—or should it say “twenty years younger than he”?

Whether “than him” is correct or not depends upon whether than is seen as a preposition or a conjunction.

Since I cannot think of than as anything but a conjunction, the use of “than him” in this sentence strikes me as non-standard.

The OED has listings for than as a demonstrative pronoun and as a conjunction, but not as a preposition. However, it does include a note about the use of than as a preposition and states that this use “is now considered incorrect.”

Merriam-Webster, however, defends the use of than as a preposition.

[than as a preposition is] used by speakers on all educational levels and by many reputable writers with the objective case form of the following pronoun when the first term in the comparison is the subject of a verb or the predicative complement after a copulative verb though disapproved by some grammarians except in the phrase than whom

Bottom line: If you’re writing for a British audience, don’t ever write “than him.” If you’re writing for an American audience, think twice about it. Written English is more conservative than spoken English. Speakers who think nothing of saying “She’s taller than me” in conversation may still cringe to see it in print.

sumber: Taller Than He

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Present Participle as Adjective

As one of our readers tells her students, writers should rejoice in the present participle because it is one of the rarities of English “rules”: one thing they can count on.

Unlike its sibling the past participle, the present participle always has the same ending.

Reminder:

• English verbs have five principal parts: Infinitive, Simple Present, Simple Past, Past Participle, and Present Participle.
• Past participles take different forms, but the present participle always ends in -ing.
• Used with helping verbs, the present participle forms the continuous tenses:

We were living in Taiwan at the time. (past continuous)

Tom Selleck has been playing law enforcement characters for thirty-four years. (present perfect continuous)

Used without a helping verb, the present participle functions as an adjective. (The -ing verb form has another use, but this post is about its function as an adjective.)

Here are some specific uses of the present participle:

• in front of a noun
  Poirot solved the puzzling mystery. (modifies “mystery”)
  The smell of burning leaves stirs memories of my childhood. (modifies “leaves”)

• after a verb of perception
  They heard someone screaming. (modifies “someone”)
  The woman watched the cat creeping toward the bird. (modifies “cat”)

• with the verbs spend and waste
  Don’t waste your time trying to convince him he’s mistaken. (modifies understood subject “You.”)
  The inefficient blogger spent her entire afternoon researching and writing one post. (modify the subject “blogger”)

• to introduce a participial phrase
  Weeping bitterly over her loss, Gwendolyn lay on the bed for several hours.
  The archaeologist, sweeping the shards into a neat pile, cursed his clumsiness.

 It is this last use of the participle that often leads to the error known as a “dangling participle.” For example:

Stubbing his toe on the step, the heavy chair fell from his grasp.

Leaning affectionately toward him, her head rested against his shoulder.

The participle phrases in these two examples are “dangling” because there’s no appropriate noun for them to describe. Dangling participles can be corrected in more than one way:

1. Provide an appropriate noun or pronoun for the phrase to describe:

Stubbing his toe on the step, the mover dropped the heavy chair.

Leaning affectionately toward him, she rested her head against his shoulder.

2. Rewrite the phrase as a clause:

When the mover stubbed his toe against the step, the heavy chair fell from his grasp.

She leaned affectionately toward him and rested her head against his shoulder.

 Source

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