How to parse. ...

276

CONJUNCTIONS. [Par. 492, 493.

Compare Byron's use of "less than woman" as
a Compound Noun in(3) "Go! let thy less-than-woman's hand assume the
distaff."1
492 "Than," when followed by a Noun or Pronoun,
requires care; for, as the sentence following " than"
is generally abridged, it is impossible to tell whether
the Noun or Pronoun is Subject or Object, till we
have supplied the implied Verb or Preposition: -
(1) "I like you better than (I like) Thomas," Object.
(2) "I like you better than Thomas (likes you),"
Subject.
f Thomas (respects you),"
(3) " There is no one re- Subject.
spects you more than (he respects) Thomas,"
I Object.
"' Than," meaning " in which degree," "where493
as," may loosely be used like " whereas," and join
together two sentences in which the principal Verb
is not the same, e.g. " Whereas John has given good
counsel, there is no counsel better;" i.e. -
(1) "There is no counsel better than John has
given." 2
It would seem easy to explain the above Example
(and many others of the same kind) by supposing
the Relative Pronoun " that" to have dropped out
1 Matzner, iii. 410.
2 See Layamon, iii. 275, for a precisely similar example.