"than do I" vs. "than I do"

Question

I need grammatical explanations for the following two sentence structures:

The mistakes children make in learning to speak tell linguists more about how children learn language than do the correct forms they use.

Freedman's survey showed that people living in small towns and rural areas consider themselves no happier than do people living in big cities.

If noticed, would someone explain me why "do" appears after "than" in the both of the sentences above?

So, would it be correct if I say, "You explain it more clearly than do I"?

First, I see exactly as many instances of do as I see of than. Second, You have not asked a real question by saying “you need grammatical explanations”. Third, these do-inversion questions have already been answered many a time before. — tchrist, Feb 21 '13 at 20:36
Also related: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/101993/should-one-invert-syntax-for-the-verb-do-in-a-comparison — Jon Hanna, Feb 22 '13 at 00:52

Dzienny · Answer 1 · 2013-02-21T20:58:54.437

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@tchrist is right. The sentence "You explain it more clearly than do I" is correct. The inversion in this case is used to express emphasis or indicate surprise.

edited Feb 21 '13 at 20:58

answered Feb 21 '13 at 20:36

Dzienny

256

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Wrong: both are perfectly correct. – tchrist Feb 21 '13 at 20:36
tchrist, did you mean to say that both "You explain it more clearly than do I" and "You explain it more clearly than I do" are correct? – Deepan Das Feb 21 '13 at 20:51
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Not only are they both correct, the "...than I do" is far more likely. – Andrew Leach Feb 21 '13 at 21:22

"than do I" vs. "than I do"

1 Answers1