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I know "than" can be both preposition and conjunction and in this case it seems to serve as a conjunction.

But the sentence doesn't look right and I think the right sentence would be,

I would rather eat it than looking at it.

What are the grammatical rules behind this usage?

Fogwright
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  • If you used a gerund for one, you'd need to use a gerund for the other, so "I would rather be eating it than looking at it." would be fine, as would "I would rather eat it than look at it." but your stated sentence would be incorrect. – John Clifford Feb 07 '16 at 13:54

1 Answers1

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The grammatical principle here is called parallelism (balance within one or more sentences of similar phrases or clauses that have the same grammatical structure). Thus...

I would rather eat it than [I would] look at it

...where the contrast is between two actions represented by infinitive verb forms (eat, look at) either side of than (being half of the correlative conjunction rather ... than).

As @John Clifford comments, if you change one half, you have to change the other to suit: I would rather be eating it than [be] looking at it.

FumbleFingers
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  • Thanks for the recognition, have another meaningless internet point! – John Clifford Feb 07 '16 at 14:05
  • @John Clifford: Apparently not totally meaningless. For a few weeks recently I kept posting bounties to avoid going reaching 100K rep (I just thought it might look a bit intimidating for some other users! :) But then this answer suddenly got massive upvotes while I was AFK, so I stopped bothering. The next day I got an email from SO asking for my address so they can send me a "goodie bag" in recognition of my dedication to the site. (I'm not expecting a cheque though! :) – FumbleFingers Feb 07 '16 at 14:12
  • Nice! Congrats on your milestone. I was pretty stoked yesterday when I hit 1k. – John Clifford Feb 07 '16 at 14:15
  • @Fogwright: The actual question as posed here (What are the grammatical rules behind this usage?) seems perfectly On Topic for ELU. But noting that from your perspective, rather eat it than looking* at it* somehow seems more "correct, logical", I think you personally would have done better to ask on English Language Learners. It's often helpful if people state their native language in ELL/ELU profiles, since it may be someone else can explain why your language leads you to make that false assumption (that might *really* help you elsewhere). – FumbleFingers Feb 07 '16 at 14:34
  • If we consider than as a (subordinating) conjunction, I think omitting I would after than in the sentence is closer to coordination than parallelism. If you contrast the sentence with "I like dogs more than (I like) cats, it is closer to coordination. –  Feb 07 '16 at 15:01
  • @Rathony: Maybe. In which case I like dogs rather* than cats* would also have to be a subordinating conjunction. But my Wikipedia link specifically says rather ... than is a "correlative conjunction", and that's good enough for me. But regardless of how you label the conjunction, the reason OP's sentence has to repeat the same verb form in both conjoined elements is because of the "parallelism" structural requirement. – FumbleFingers Feb 08 '16 at 13:27
  • Parallelism is more like you don't use other forms (or structure) in two clauses in a sentence. If you contrast "To answer accurately is more important than you finish quickly." with "To answer accurately is more important than to finish quickly, it is clear that the former is not in parallelism even though it makes sense. The example of "would rather A than B" is different in a sense that the subject (you) and the auxiliary verb (would) are elided as we don't have to repeat them. Coordination is for conciseness while parallelism is for using the same form (structure). –  Feb 08 '16 at 13:59
  • @Rathony: I don't see what you're getting at (To answer accurately is more important than you finish quickly doesn't sound at all good to me, but I've no idea if that's relevant to the point you want to make). You seem to be telling me that "parallelism" isn't a suitable term for describing why the two verb forms in OP's example must match, but if that implies you think They have to match because it's a coordinating construction** is a "better" answer, all I can say is I'm unconvinced. But if that is what you're saying, post it as an answer and lets see if others agree. – FumbleFingers Feb 08 '16 at 14:21