the comparative ... , the comparative ... and predication

Asked Jul 24 '18 at 12:48

Active Jul 25 '18 at 11:17

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I know people have asked about the correlative comparative construction, but none of the previous posts concerns its specific analysis.

How would you analyze the boldfaced part of #2 below?

The more you buy, the greater the discounts you receive.

The more you buy, the greater discounts you receive.

In #1, "greater" stands in a predicative relation to "the discounts you receive"; it's paraphrasable as "The discounts you receive are (the) greater the more you buy. The copular verb "are" can be treated as omitted in #1.

Does the same predicative relation hold in #2? What about an alternative analysis whereby "greater discounts" stands in a verb-object relation to "receive"? In this connection, consider #3:

The longer you work, the more money you earn.

Which kind of relation holds in #3? A predicative or verb-object relation?

edited Jun 15 '20 at 07:40

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asked Jul 24 '18 at 12:48

Apollyon

1,879

"Money" is a mass noun. "Discount" is not. – Hot Licks Jul 24 '18 at 12:51
That seems to be an irrelevant point. – Apollyon Jul 24 '18 at 13:06
4

Possible duplicate of "The more, the merrier!" -- Is this a sentence? If not... what? I also believe your earlier question about the same construction on ELL is a duplicate on that site, putting aside the issue of whether this one represents undesirable "cross-posting" on the SE network of sites. – FumbleFingers Jul 24 '18 at 13:55
But I'm asking which analysis should be adopted, and there are no satisfactory answers there. – Apollyon Jul 24 '18 at 14:01

the comparative ... , the comparative ... and predication

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