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In the sentence below,

Greenland may not be as "green" as the name suggests.

The verb "suggest" should preceed an object as it is a transitive verb, but in the sentence, there is none.

In this case, should the second "as" be understood as some sort of relative pronoun though there is no noun? Or should it be understood as a comparative conjunction? If it is a comparative conjunction, is it ok to not have a direct object for "suggests"?

And if something is omitted, what is it?

ermanen
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HanJe Bae
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  • You could look at some other questions about "as": https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/472315/confusing-comparatives-as-few-as-as-many-as https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/120410/is-it-as-wonderful-as-them-or-as-wonderful-as-they https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/54453/as-far-as-i-know-and-as-far-as-im-concerned – Stuart F Aug 30 '23 at 09:14
  • I believe the verb "suggest" is used an absolute verb in the phrase "as the name suggests" as the object is implied or it is stated previously. You can consider it as an idiomatic expression, same as "as it implies". – ermanen Aug 30 '23 at 10:06
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    Expanding the deletion and segmenting, [Greenland] [may not be] [as "green" as] [the name suggests it is] [green]. Compare [He] [is] [as tall as] [I am] [tall]. 'as tall as' / 'as green as' / 'as beautiful as' / 'as isolated as' ... are best treated as the fixed 'as ... as' construction (with appropriate adjectives) without worrying about what the as's should be classed as. Otherwise, one gets into the murky area of 'ex- or crypto-conjunction or preposition by default?' John Lawler, in a duplicate, has 'probably the right POS to assign as...as... is "correlative conjunction" '. – Edwin Ashworth Aug 30 '23 at 10:21
  • I believe this sentence is not a simple "as...as" comparison and can be analyzed further. "As the name suggests" is an idiomatic expression that can be comma-separated in a sentence also, and this sentence could be written as "Greenland, as the name suggests, may not be as green". – ermanen Aug 31 '23 at 05:51
  • @EdwinAshworth The first as is a degree adverb. The second is an equative preposition. I think as I am tall is a constituent, and if so, your segmentation is allowing there. – Araucaria - Him Aug 31 '23 at 17:00
  • This is an inversion. The basic statement is "The name Greenland suggests that it's green. But it's not." – Barmar Aug 31 '23 at 17:20

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