Comparing Conjunctions and Prepositions

Asher Olsen
March 2019

The ability to make statements of comparison is an important part of com-

municating. In English, the main words that are used to express comparisons
are as, like, and than. The classification of these words is somewhat of a matter
of contention among grammarians. While than is traditionally considered to be
a conjunction, it is very frequently used as though it were a preposition: “than
him;” “than me” as opposed to “than he” and “than I.”

1 English than. The word than in English is used to form comparative

statements. Following are three examples showing its main uses:

(1) I run faster than he does.

(2) I run faster than he walks.
(3) I run