Friday, October 13, 2017

Grammaticality: 'We invited more people than wanted to come.'



[Source:] Comparative subordination


Examples of the comparative that do not allow an analysis in terms of coordination (because the necessary parallel structures are not present) are instances of comparative subordination. In such cases, than has the status of a preposition or a subordinator (subordinate conjunction), e.g.


a. We invited more people than wanted to come.
1. We invited more people than [the number of people who] wanted to come.



Is this sentence perfectly grammatical? It sounds wrong. I can't pinpoint my angst's confusion, but maybe I'm concerned by the absence of a noun after than? I would've written 1 which sounds right to me, but again, I can't explain why. Please help me to dredge up the origins of my dread.




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