If I compare the subject of a sentence with another noun, are both supposed to be in the subjective case or should the second noun be in the objective case.
Is it: ‘I am taller than him’ or ‘I am taller than he’?
The second one doesn’t sound quite right but that doesn’t make it wrong;
In colloquial speech, grammatical rules are not followed very strictly.
The second example would be correct if we add ‘to be.’ ‘I am taller than he is.’ Am I adding ‘is’ or am I placing ‘is’ where it should have been anyway?
Bert, you are taller than he. Actually, I don’t know how tall you are, so that sentence may be false, but it is grammatically correct. You are also correct that we tend to stray away from the rules a bit in colloquial speech. However, using the correct case can significantly alter the meaning:
She likes the cat more than him.
She likes the cat more than he.
In the first case, she likes the cat more than she likes him (and thus, he has a bit of a problem). In the second, she likes the cat more than he likes the cat, and their relationship is on much firmer ground.
It’s not that in colloquial speech, grammatical rules aren’t followed; it’s that different grammatical rules are used. In many (most?) colloquial dialects of English, “I am taller than he” is at best highly elevated (and atypical) speech, and at worst ungrammatical.
There are prosodic reasons to prefer “than him” at the end of a clause to “than he.” But, from one of my favorite blogs, “Language Log,” see these two discussions:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001650.html
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001061.html
It depends whether you consider “than” a preposition or a conjunction. A preposition renders the accusative “him,” while the conjunction will do whatever is appropriate to the syntax, as explained above. Shakespeare did both.
Do you have a reference that would support that position?
Do you have a reference that would support that position?
Though not actual research, just the other day, my roommate and I were chatting online, and he told me I sounded wrong and unnatural because I tend not to use contractions when I type/write (thanks to many papers). So people sometimes do consider something that is formally correct as wrong if it doesn’t coincide with the way they hear the language.
Okay…my turn to chime in. 
From Strunk and White, The Elements of Style, (1979 edition, pp. 11-12):
A pronoun in a comparison is nominative if it is the subject of a stated or understood verb.
‘Sandy writes better than I. (Than I write.)’
This reference is from the book still used in the English classes in the college to which I went. I should point out that the book goes on to say:
In general, avoid ‘understood’ verbs by supplying them:
‘I think Horace admires Jessica more than I do.’
‘Polly loves cake more than she loves me.’
So, Bert, in your original question, “I am taller than he” is correct, though better is your second statement, “I am taller than he is.”
Best,
Chris
I don’t have time right now to check out the links. I’ll do that tonight.
I don’t understand the ‘different grammatical rule’ theory. “Him and me are going to the game tonight” is not grammatically correct just because a lot of people say it like that. Almost more common now (maybe as an over reaction to the first,) is; “You can give that to her and I.” (I guess eventually the rules will shift through use but I don’t think enough people are saying these things wrong yet.)
But just because he disagrees with you doesn’t mean that he is correct and you are wrong. I have three children in elementary school and they often don’t understand me (or, at least, that’s often the defensive position they take when they are accused of not doing what they were told). There are grammatical rules that they do not yet understand. I don’t think it would be correct to say that I am speak ungrammatical kindergartenese.
As an unrelated side note, I saw a documentary about two months ago where a murderer was convicted based partially upon testimony by a linguistics expert who stated he could identify a certain piece of writing related to crime as belonging to the suspect based upon instances when he did or did not use contractions.
I’ve never been convinced that any use of “than” as a preposition in English is grammatically correct; however, I will admit that its use as such by Shakespeare would be rather compelling (and far weightier than any other argument I have heard). I’ll look around for examples. If you have any, that would be great, too.
The word for “than” is exclusively a conjunction in Italian, for example, and renders direct object pronouns only. The “than I/me” distinction is entirely lost.
I checked out the links. I am surprised that this point has been discussed so much before. I am also surprised that there does not seem to be a clear answer. I guess language is not built on rules.
Under the interpretation of “than” as a preposition, “than I” would be ungrammatical. As to whether or not the “am” can optionally be dropped in most dialects of English, I was probably hasty to assume that in some dialects it could not (the ones where “than I” would be ungrammatical). You clearly are not swayed by the existence of native English speakers who find this usage unacceptable, however.
For you, is there only one English?
So there is no such thing as a dialect of English? (not just in terms of pronunciation and vocabulary)
I think there’s a difference between saying that ‘than’ can at times be used as a preposition and saying that to use it any other way would ungrammatical.
No. As I said above, my kids are native English speakers and their usage and/or understanding of the language does not define what is or not grammatically correct. My younger daughter frequently uses ‘her’ as the subject of a sentence (‘her went to the store’).
More than one, but not an infinite number. I don’t think that everything a native speaker says is by definition correct.
OK, out of my own curiosity I looked through Antony and Cleopatra and found 51 uses of ‘than’ by Shakespeare in that play. Most, of course, are ambiguous as to whether he is using ‘than’ as a preposition or conjunction, since phrases and nouns do not have cases in English (e.g., “is not more manlike Than Cleopatra” could be argued to be equivalent to either ‘than she’ or ‘than her’). In several cases, the use is unequivocally as a conjunction, since Shakespeare sometimes includes the verb (e.g., “You shall be yet far fairer than you are.”) However, in every case where he used a pronoun in a situation analogous to Bert’s original question, he chose the nominative over the objective case:
“IRAS. Am I not an inch of fortune better than she?”
“CHARMIAN. Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than I, where would you choose it?”
“nor the queen of Ptolemy More womanly than he;”
“Thou fumblest, Eros, and my queen’s a squire More tight at this than thou.”
It doesn’t prove anything, of course, but it does tell me that Shakespeare at least tended to consider ‘than’ in these situations as a conjunction and I could not find a single example (in this one play) that would indicate that he believed it could be used a preposition.
On the odd chance that anyone cares or might want to argue a counter-example, I have attached all of the uses of than below (all from the Project Gutenberg version):
To compare an adult speaker of a non-standard dialect to a child is unbelievably miguided and elitist. Why is your form correct and another incorrect?
A native speaker can make mistakes, but if a native speaker consistently makes the same “mistake,” it is worth investigating whether it is unique to his/her idiolect or merely a feature of his/her dialect. When there is an entire group of people making the same “mistake,” it is no longer a mistake; it is a feature of the dialect.
Yes, if the belief that there is a difference between correct and incorrect English makes me an elitist then I confess that I am guilty as charged. By the way, on what day does the language of my children convert from that of a child to that of a “non-standard dialect?” Is it on their 18th birthday when things change from being a lack of complete education to an acceptable dialect?
I also think it is unfortunate that the classification of incorrect English as a "non-standard dialect’ is infecting our educational system, but that’s a topic for a different thread…
Yes there are different dialects but I am not convinced that this is a case of different uses in different dialects. (Not convinced is not the same as convinced of the opposite.)
Even in different dialects, there are differences between speech and writing. I don’t think that means that there are different rules for speech than there are for writing but that the rules aren’t followed in one or the other.
Are native English speakers really using Shakespeare as an authority on what is correct English? Usage must have changed during those last 500 years.
On the topic, however, I will not comment, as I am prejudiced towards ‘than him’ because that is how it is always done in Danish, unless there is any ambiguity. It is always hard to be able to think in a different language, especially when that language is close to your own in terms of grammatical peculiarities but not the same.