32 · Clauses
Comparative clauses
A comparative clause completes a comparison by supplying its second part. In More people came than we expected, more people sets the quantity being compared and than we expected supplies the expectation it is compared with.
the test
Restore what the comparison leaves understood
More people came than we expected ___ to come.
The added words show one way to state what is understood after expected. English usually leaves those words unspoken. The course places the than-clause in a sentence-edge position called the postnucleus and records its link to the earlier comparison.
The engine ran faster than the train. / The engine ran faster than we expected.
In the first sentence, the second term is a phrase. In the second, it contains its own subject–predicate frame and is a clause. A comparison word such as than or as helps locate the second term but does not decide its form.
Do not hunt only for -er and than.
More carefully than we expected expresses inequality without -er. As quickly as she could expresses equality with paired as. Both still relate an earlier scale expression to a clausal second term.
Ten sentences from this lesson, one decision at a time.