Comparatives, Deletion, and Coordination

You already know how to form comparatives — stór → stærri "bigger", góður → betri "better" — and that lives in the Adjectives group. This page is about the syntax of comparison: what actually sits after the word en "than", why most of it is deleted, and — the payoff — how the case of the leftover noun lets Icelandic draw a distinction that English can only make with extra words. The headline fact is this: the standard of comparison after en is a reduced clause, and the noun that survives the reduction keeps the case its hidden grammatical role demands. Because Icelandic shows that case overtly, betur en hún and betur en hana are two different sentences; English "than her" is ambiguous between them. (For the comparative forms themselves see comparative-regular; for comparison syntax basics, comparative-syntax and the conjunction comparison. en "than" is unstressed.)

en introduces a clause, then most of it is deleted

When you say Hann er hærri en ég "He is taller than I", the part after en is not really a bare pronoun — it is a whole clause with everything redundant deleted. Underlyingly: Hann er hærri en ég (er hár) — "He is taller than I (am tall)". You never say the bracketed material, because it would just repeat the comparison; but it is grammatically there, and its presence is what explains the case on ég. This is comparative deletion: the second clause is built in full and then stripped of everything recoverable from the first.

The deletion can be partial — you keep as much of the second clause as you need to be clear, and delete the rest. en ég keeps only the subject; en ég hélt keeps subject and verb; en búist var við keeps an impersonal passive. What is always deleted is the repeated point of comparison (the second hár, rík, auðvelt).

The case of the standard: en ég, not en mig

This is the first place English transfer goes wrong. Colloquial English says "taller than me" — object form — treating than as a preposition. Careful English says "taller than I" — keeping the subject form because I is the subject of an understood "…than I am". Icelandic always uses the careful-English logic, and obligatorily: the standard takes the case of the role it plays in the deleted clause. For a subject comparison, that is the nominative.

Because the case tracks the role, the standard is not always nominative — when the compared element is an object, the standard appears in the object case. The case simply records what the noun does in the reduced clause.

So there is no single "case after en". There is only "the case the standard's hidden role requires" — and that role is what the next section turns into a disambiguation tool.

Case disambiguates: en hún vs en hana

Here is the elegant payoff, and the reason this construction is a showpiece. Take the English sentence "I like him more than her." It is genuinely ambiguous:

1. "I like him more than she likes him" — comparing two likers.
2. "I like him more than (I like) her" — comparing two liked people.

English cannot tell these apart without rewording ("…than she does" vs "…than I like her"). Icelandic tells them apart with one case ending, because the standard's role surfaces as case:

• If the standard is a second subject (reading 1), it is nominative — en hún.
• If the standard is a second object (reading 2), it is accusative — en hana.

One sentence, one minimal change — hún (nom.) vs hana (acc.) — and the entire meaning flips, with no extra words. The case ending is the disambiguator. This is a clean demonstration of why Icelandic's rich case system is not redundant decoration: it carries information that English has to spell out with a "does" or a reworded clause. Use it deliberately — when you want to be unambiguous, choose the case that names the role you mean.

Phrasal vs clausal comparatives

Not every en-phrase hides a full clause. Some comparisons are genuinely phrasal — en relates two phrases directly, with no implied second verb at all. The clearest cases involve comparing quantities, measures, or set members, where there is no second predicate to delete:

The distinction matters for case. In a clausal comparative the standard takes its role's case (en ég, en hana); in a phrasal one with a numeral or a set-complement, you often see a default form. The safe test: if you can recover a deleted verb and subject, it is clausal and case follows the role; if en simply joins two like phrases (numbers, "nothing but X"), it is phrasal.

A common, fully clausal pattern worth singling out is the impersonal-passive standard — "than was expected", "than (one) had thought" — where the deleted clause is itself subjectless:

Coordination ellipsis: the same deletion logic, in 'og'

The deletion that powers comparatives is one instance of a broader Icelandic habit: delete repeated material under coordination. When two coordinated clauses share a subject, verb, or object, the shared element is normally dropped from the second conjunct, exactly as in English — but with one Icelandic twist worth flagging: a shared subject that is dropped still leaves V2 order intact in each conjunct.

The connection to comparatives is conceptual: both constructions build a full second structure and then strip whatever the first structure already supplies. Recognising the shared mechanism makes the case behaviour in comparatives feel less like a special rule and more like one application of a general deletion principle. (For coordination reduction in detail see coordination-ellipsis.)

Why this trips up English speakers

Two transfer traps dominate. First, object case after en by analogy with "than me": English colloquial than me / than her / than him tempts learners to use the accusative everywhere, producing *hærri en mig. But Icelandic assigns the standard the case of its role, and a subject comparison needs the nominative — hærri en ég. Second, and more interestingly, learners fail to exploit the case to disambiguate: trained on an English system that cannot mark the difference, they don't realise that en hún and en hana mean different things, and so they pick a case at random and convey the wrong comparison. The fix for both is the same single question: what role does the standard play in the implied clause? Answer that, and the case — and the meaning — follow.

Common Mistakes

en is not a preposition assigning accusative; it heads a reduced clause, and the standard takes its role's case — here, the subject's nominative.

Here the error is not ungrammaticality but miscommunication: the case you choose selects the reading. Pick the case that names the role you mean.

When the second clause keeps a verb (hélt), the comparison and its complement are what get deleted; you do not re-add the object.

A numeral after en is a phrasal comparison, not a reduced clause; treat it as a plain quantity.

The impersonal-passive standard is a fixed reduced clause; leave the recoverable material deleted.

Key Takeaways

• The standard after en "than" is a reduced clause: build the second clause, then delete everything that repeats the first (comparative deletion). What survives keeps the case of its hidden role.
• A subject comparison takes the nominative — hærri en ég, never en mig. An object comparison takes the object case — betur en þér (dative under treysta).
• Case disambiguates: betur en hún (nom.) = "than SHE (does)" vs betur en hana (acc.) = "than (I do) HER". Icelandic resolves with one ending what English needs an extra clause for.
• Phrasal comparatives (numerals, annað en "other than") relate phrases directly with no hidden clause; clausal ones (including impersonal-passive en búist var við) follow role-based case.
• Comparative deletion is one instance of a general delete-the-repeated principle, the same one behind coordination ellipsis (keypti brauð og mjólk).