part of speech of "same" in ("This flower smells the same as a rose.")

Lycidas · Oct 30, 2022

(1) This flower smells the same as a rose.

What is the part of speech of "same" in sentences like (1)? Is it a noun, perhaps similar to "poor" in "Pity the poor"?

Or is it an adjective, perhaps modifying a generic noun that has been elided, like "way" ("This flower smells the same [way] as a rose [smells]")?

I have checked some grammar books, including some big ones, and don't seem able to find a clear answer, which I'm sure exists. Out of laziness, I'm starting this thread.

(I'm trying to do a Reed-Kellogg diagram of [1]. The diagram is about the elliptical "as"-clause, but I'm forced to make a decision about "same.")

Thank you.

Lycidas · Oct 31, 2022

Interestingly, the online Cambridge dictionary (here) classifies "same" in this usage as a pronoun.

One of the Cambridge examples under that definition ("People say I look just the same as my sister") is grammatically parallel to "smells the same as a rose."

I question whether it is correct in classifying "same" as a pronoun there. Is Cambridge trying to say that "the same" is a phrasal pronoun, assuming such things exist?

With perhaps the sole exception of the music group The Who, pronouns are not, as far as I know, preceded by "the": "~~the I~~," "~~the them~~," "~~the you~~"?

PaulMatthews · Oct 31, 2022

Lycidas said:
(1) This flower smells the same as a rose.

What is the part of speech of "same" in sentences like (1)? Is it a noun, perhaps similar to "poor" in "Pity the poor"?

Or is it an adjective, perhaps modifying a generic noun that has been elided, like "way" ("This flower smells the same [way] as a rose [smells]")?

I have checked some grammar books, including some big ones, and don't seem able to find a clear answer, which I'm sure exists. Out of laziness, I'm starting this thread.

(I'm trying to do a Reed-Kellogg diagram of [1]. The diagram is about the elliptical "as"-clause, but I'm forced to make a decision about "same.")

Thank you.

This flower smells the same as a rose.

This is a comparative construction where "same" is an adjective in predicative function. It's modified by "the" to form the adjective phrase "the same", which has the preposition phrase "as a rose" as the comparative complement phrase.

Lycidas · Oct 31, 2022

PaulMatthews said:
This flower smells the same as a rose.

This is a comparative construction where "same" is an adjective in predicative function. It's modified by "the" to form the adjective phrase "the same"

Thanks very much. Is this the received contemporary analysis? I find the idea that "the" can introduce an adjective phrase a bit counterintuitive.

Consider that, although we can say, "This flower smells delightful," it would be ungrammatical to say, *"This flower smells the delightful."

PaulMatthews said:
which has the preposition phrase "as a rose" as the comparative complement phrase.

Do you find the prepositional phrase to include a clause containing ellipsis?

I find the sentence to be short for "This flower smells the same as a rose [smells]." I think that "as" even plays a role in the elliptical clause it introduces.

While I do not yet have a tree analysis to propose, below is my tentative, extremely old-school diagram of the sentence:

PaulMatthews · Nov 1, 2022

Lycidas said:
Thanks very much. Is this the received contemporary analysis? I find the idea that "the" can introduce an adjective phrase a bit counterintuitive.

Consider that, although we can say, "This flower smells delightful," it would be ungrammatical to say, *"This flower smells the delightful."

Do you find the prepositional phrase to include a clause containing ellipsis?

This flower smells the same as a rose.

There's no doubt that "the" is a dependent of the adjective "same". What else could it be? It's the same "the" that occurs as modifier of such comparative expressions as "more", "less", "better". Notice that if we drop the "the" the sentence becomes ungrammatical.

It's also the same "the" that occurs in correlative comparison constructions, e.g. The more we eat, the fatter we become.

Yes: like all comparative clauses, it is reduced relative to the structure of a main clause. In this case it's a verbless clause where the reduction is to a single element, in this case the NP "a rose", standing on its own. We could fill out the comparative clause by adding some material, as in This flower smells the same as a rose smells.

I can't comment on your proposed diagram since the Reed-Kellogg system is alien to me.

Lycidas · Nov 1, 2022

PaulMatthews said:
This flower smells the same as a rose.

There's no doubt that "the" is a dependent of the adjective "same". What else could it be? It's the same "the" that occurs as modifier of such comparative expressions as "more", "less", "better". Notice that if we drop the "the" the sentence becomes ungrammatical.

It's also the same "the" that occurs in correlative comparison constructions, e.g. The more we eat, the fatter we become.

Interesting! Thank you. My understanding is that the "the"s in correlative comparatives like "The more we eat, the fatter we become" are adverbs, not determiners/articles. Indeed, I have just verified this in the OED. It lists the part of speech of "the" in correlative comparatives as an adverb.

Assuming you agree with the lexical categorization of "the" as an adverb (or, in any case, something that is not an article/determiner) in this use, my perspective on your analysis has just changed for the better.

I had assumed that "the" was a determiner.

It had seemed to me that "the same" was a DP (determiner phrase) containing a noun phrase with a head that was either null or elided. I had preferred my tentative "null head" analysis, since it seemed arbitrary to supply and antecedent-less, generic elided noun, like "way": This flower smells the same [way] as a rose [does].

PaulMatthews · Nov 2, 2022

Lycidas said:
Interesting! Thank you. My understanding is that the "the"s in correlative comparatives like "The more we eat, the fatter we become" are adverbs, not determiners/articles. Indeed, I have just verified this in the OED. It lists the part of speech of "the" in correlative comparatives as an adverb.

Assuming you agree with the lexical categorization of "the" as an adverb (or, in any case, something that is not an article/determiner) in this use, my perspective on your analysis has just changed for the better. I had assumed that "the" was a determiner.

It had seemed to me that "the same" was a DP (determiner phrase) containing a noun phrase with a head that was either null or elided. I had preferred my tentative "null head" analysis, since it seemed arbitrary to supply and antecedent-less, generic elided noun, like "way": This flower smells the same [way] as a rose [does].

It's important to distinguish word class (part of speech) and function. The "the" that we're discussing here belongs to the word class determinative, and its function is that of modifier. Even if it were an adverb it would still be a dependent of "same", i.e. a modifier just like "the" is. I suspect that some dictionaries (and older grammars) consider that since it's modifying an adjective (or another adverb) it must be an adverb, but that makes no sense since it has none of the properties of real adverbs. The simplest solution is to say that "the" is always a determinative and its function in this case is not as the usual determiner, but modifier.

Note "determinative" for the word class and "determiner" for the corresponding function.

part of speech of "same" in ("This flower smells the same as a rose.")

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