0

He doesn’t sound nearly as eager to make small talk with this guy as he was with me.

how to understand the above sentence?

kishore kumar
  • 57
  • Are you asking about the meaning of the sentence or about its grammatical structure? – Shoe Jun 02 '23 at 07:27
  • 2
    If it's about the meaning, this belongs on English Language Learners. Otherwise, what specifically are you interested in? What do you think it means? How would you parse it? What elements are you uncertain about? – Stuart F Jun 02 '23 at 08:23

2 Answers2

2
  • He doesn’t sound nearly [as eager to make small talk with this guy as he was with me].

The part in brackets is called an Equative construction. It's the base level of three comparison constructions, the Equative, the Comparative, and the Superlative:

  • He's (not) as eager to talk with this guy as he is (eager to talk) with me.
    Equative - as ... as ... construction
  • He's more eager to talk with this guy than he is (eager to talk) with me.
    Comparative - more/-er ... than ... construction
  • He's (the) most eager to talk with this guy.
    Superlative - most/-est construction, optional the

All of these constructions have industrial-strength syntax and semantics, involving at least two quantifiers and comparisons among them, plus hypothetical judgements and frequent appearance with negatives. All the constructions have multiple variants, and all can appear with nouns, verbs, and adjectives, phrases of all kinds, and full clauses, provided they're more or less parallel.

So in the original sentence, don't forget that ... as he was with me is short for

  • ... as he was [eager to make small talk] with me

where the words in brackets are deleted under identity with the same words in the first part.

John Lawler
  • 107,887
0

Consider sentences of the form [subject] + [copula] + [complement]; the complement may be of varied complexity:

a. He is cold. {predicative adjective}

b. He is keen to go. {added infinitive clause as adjective complement}

c. He is eager to make small talk with this guy.

The link verb may be varied; a to be-deletion is arguably involved:

a'. He seems cold.

b'. He appears keen to go.

c'. He sounds eager to make small talk with this guy.

There are corresponding sentences showing comparisons, using the as ... as construction:

a''. He seems [almost] as cold as you.

b''. He appears [quite] as keen to go as you [are].

c''. He sounds [nearly] as eager to make small talk with this guy as I am / he was with me.

Here, suitable downtoners or other modifiers may be included, as shown. There are often deletions, masking parallelisms:

B''. He appears [quite] as keen to go as you [are] [keen to go].

C''. He sounds [nearly] as eager to make small talk with this guy as [he was] [eager to make small talk] with me.

Edwin Ashworth
  • 83,272