¹ These are as follows, with the initials used to identify them here: AME = América 24: 1, 2, 3, enero, febrero, marzo (Habana, 1945). B = Benito Lynch, Los Caranchos de la Florida (Buenos Aires, Espasa Calpe, 1938). BRL = G. A. Becquer, Rimas y Leyendas, 7^a ed. (Buenos Aires, Espasa Calpe, 1943). C = Memoria, IV Congreso Panamericano de Carreteras (Mexico, D. F., 1942). CA = Ciro Alegría, La Serpiente de Oro, 2^a ed. (Santiago de Chile, Nacimiento, 1936). CM = Ciro Alegría, El Mundo es Ancho y Ajeno, 7^a ed. (Santiago de Chile, Ercilla, 1944). GDB = Rómulo Gallegos, Doña Bárbara (Barcelona, Araluce, n.d.). H = Antonio Heras, Vorágine sin Fondo (Madrid, Espasa-Calpe, 1936). JA = B. Pérez Galdós, Marianela (Boston, Heath, 1910). JM = B. Pérez Galdós, El Abuelo (Boston, Heath, 1910). M = V. Blasco Ibáñez, La Barraca (Madrid, Sempere, n.d.). MA = Mañana (México, D. F., 1946). 00 = Daniel Samper Ortega, La Obsesión (Bogotá, Minerva, 1935). P = La Peensa (Buenos Aires, enero 1946). R = Carlos P. Rómulo, Yo Ví la Caída de Filipinas (Madrid, 1945). RA = Revista de América (México, D. F., 23 de marzo 1946). RM = Revista Mexicana de Sociología (Mexico, D. F., Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma, 27 de febrero 1946). XY = Todo núm 656 (México D. F., 4 de abril 1946). YZ = México Cinema núm 42 (México, D. F., marzo 1946). ZZ = Fotofilm Cinemagazine núm. 3 (México, D. F., mayo 1946).

Grateful acknowledgment is due to the readers who collected the citations from the written sources: A. E. Conway, Fidel J. González Jr., Murel Harris, Madeline Kaplan, Raymond V. López, Carmen Masino, Alonzo Montes, Lorenzo Sandoval, Clark Tardy, Angelo Villa, Ruth Volz, and Margaret Ziegler.

² Keniston, The Syntax of Castilian Prose: The Sixteenth Century (Chicago, 1937), records (42.773) examples of al revés, ante, antes, contrario, diferencia, diferente, and primero construed with que in the sixteenth century.

³ Real Academia Española, Gramática de la Lengua Española (Madrid, 1931) records (§428 j) instances of diferente, distinto, diverso, and primero construed with que. It attempts to explain them on the basis of ellipsis—Acaban de comer con costumbres diferentes que empezaron being presumably from Acaban de comer con costumbres diferentes de las costumbres con que empezaron. Analogy, however, is probably a better premise, especially as it works both ways—En cuanto al desempleo, el problema de Puerto Rico no es peor al de ningún otro país (Ecos de Nueva York, 19 octubre 1947 page 10)—here a true comparative is used with a, the preposition which, alternating with de, is normal with diferente. See Bolinger, Analogical Correlatives of Than, American Speech 21.199–202 (1946).

⁴ See Bolinger, op.cit.

⁵ Though less used than in Spanish, the construction is no stranger to English, as witness It was no more than right that she should come, He undertook no more than to accept the challenge.

⁶ A. Bello and R. J. Cuervo, Gramática de la Lengua Castellana nota 126 (París, Andrés Blot, 1936).

⁷ Hilario Sáenz, The Spanish Translations of Than, Hispania 23.327 (1940).

⁸ Syn. Cast. Prose 40.72.

⁹ After observing soundly that no más que = ‘sino’, the Academy grammar reverts (§429 e) to ‘Si la oración principal es negativa, puede ponerse que en vez de de‘ for numerals—as if there were no semantic difference, adding that either más de or más que may be replaced by sino. This relapse may be due to the fact that the Academy does not distinguish epochs of usage, but tries to give a composite picture of all but medieval Spanish.

¹⁰ A good example to show the significance of the parallel is MA 23 marzo, 81 No tuvo calidad más que en su principio. Here the más is adverbial, signifying (since it has to parallel en su principio) ‘at any time other’. If the order were changed to No tuvo más calidad que en su principio, más would be an adjective, its parallel with en su principio would be destroyed, and no más que would not signify ‘only’. Similarly in AME 57/2 Su táctica no ha tenido más éxito que la del falangismo español, the gender of la shows the parallel to be with táctica rather than with éxito, whence again the no más que does not signify ‘only’.

Though ordinarily close, the parallelism is extended to the matching of nouns and adjectives when predicate complements, as in JA 112 Yo no soy nada ni nadie más que para uno solo.

The remarkable flexibility of nada as regards part of speech is illustrated by the examples, proposed by one native speaker: Salió del accidente con nada menos que un ojo negro and Salió del accidente nada menos que con un ojo negro, both correct.

In the formulas to follow, the symbol ˜ indicates 'grammatically similar to (parallel with)', while ˜ indicates 'grammatically dissimilar to'.

¹¹ Whether the parallel is with un ‘one’ or with the noun when un = ‘a’ has to be determined contextually.

¹² Construe as ‘nowise other than his’; or, if preferred, take nada as a predicate noun paralleling the predicate adjective suya, and modified by más—in the latter case, the example belongs under (1).

¹³ Marcos A. Morínigo, Sobre los Cabildos Indígenas de las Misiones, Revista de la Academia de Entre Rios 1.31 (Paraná, 1946). Professor Morínigo tells me that de más que would be equally acceptable here; the example would then fall under (a). When, as in this amended example, a preposition is repeated on both sides of que (and hence ‘the element introduced by que‘ contains something not paralleling the single word más itself), the neatest procedure is to cancel out the repeated prepositions for purposes of formulation. See below in the treatment of otro que a similar instance of doubling of prepositions.

¹⁴ This qualification is necessary in order to exclude the type No es más animal que hombre.

¹⁵ Unless one count ZZ 7/3 No le preocupaba más que al protagonista. Since, however, in all its other functions the conjunctive pronoun is a verbal affix and takes no modifiers of its own (its parent word may have a modifier, of course, as in CM 89 Eso que me pasó con una víbora a nadie le ha pasado más que a mí—here we construe más as qualifying nadie and get type [1]), it would seem better to regard más here as adverbial, paralleling the phrase al protagonista, with le actually repeating B rather than standing for A.

¹⁶ The rule in Academy §429 b, to the effect that B takes the object sign a if A has it, is inadequate in the light of these examples. In the sixteenth century (Keniston, Syn. Cast. Prose 6.743) the disjunctive pronoun could be accusative.

¹⁷ Error for la.

¹⁸ This example is not counted in the figures for no más que.

¹⁹ And in certain stereotypes: I had no more than come when—, I had no sooner come than—, He did it no less than twenty times, No fewer than twenty people showed up.

²⁰ See Keniston Syn. Cast. Prose 26.345 for que in double function in the sixteenth century.

²¹ The wording in Keniston, Spanish Syntax List §26.5 (New York, Holt, 1937) is 'When the main clause is negative it may deny any alternative “exclusion” beyond that indicated in the second element and the correlative for “than” will be de. Of this construction, common down to the Golden Age, only one example remains: in the idiom no poder menos de.' The phraseology should be amended (or a section added on no más que, otro que, etc.) so as to show that nowadays 'denying any alternative beyond that indicated in the second element' is a function of que.

²² Menos subjective complement does not parallel los gatos y los perros subject of elliptical clause.

²³ The position of the negative is decisive in English. Note that we cannot substitute not for no, so as to get He did not undertake less difficult a task than to capture, etc., and come out with the same implication at all; similarly with this particular construction in Spanish, where no must be applied directly to menos, the type No emprendió tarea menos difícil que la de, etc. having a different meaning. So we modify formula NM (A = S) QB in two ways: first, by letting M stand for menos plus an adjective; second, by admitting the order (A = S) NMQB. It does not follow that elsewhere the position of no in Spanish is important. Thus No lo dijo menos que (or de) 30 veces and Lo dijo no menos que (or de) 30 veces are all acceptable and the shift of no is unimportant.

Probably the corresponding He went no less rapidly than ninety miles per hour is acceptable in direct translation. Here we can repeat the formula N (M = A) QB, with the proviso that M is menos plus an adverb and that nothing intervenes between N and M.

I have been unable to get positive evidence for a Spanish equivalent of the English use of more in this same type of construction, i.e. in which more is expanded to more plus an adjective or an adverb, as in We received no more satisfactory a clue than the knowledge that the culprit was somewhere about, implying that ‘we did get that particular clue or knowledge’ and that ‘it was unimportant on the side of satisfactoriness’. The same native speaker who accepted Emprendió tarea no menos difícil with the implication that I have assumed, rejected Recibimos indicio no más satisfactorio. The Castilian speaker, for many years resident in this country, felt that The pilot climbed out of his cockpit with nothing worse than a black eye (Saturday Evening Post 7 Sept. 1946 page 20) would be intelligible, though unusual, in direct translation. One Costa Rican speaker, newer to these shores, felt, however, that the literal phrasing would be untranslatable.

²⁴ It was used in the sixteenth century—see Keniston Syn. Cast. Prose 5.647. The invented examples No me gusta vivir aquí; yo esperaba otra cosa que estar siempre dentro de casa cuidando de la familia and ¿Es ésta?—No, es otra que ésta were accepted by one speaker but rejected by another.

²⁵ The invented examples No llegaron otros que éstos, ¿Había otros que éstos? and No he visto a otro que a Juan were accepted by one speaker but rejected by another.

²⁶ See footnote 13.

²⁷ This means that the más must be (1) a sentence adverb, not an adjective nor a noun, (and hence cannot itself be one of the alternatives, so that M etc. ~ B becomes A ~ B here); and that the alternatives must be (2) explicit and (3) parallel. (1) The type P 6 enero, 4/8 Solo la Argentina ha suministrado ... más came que la prometida is excluded because más is adjective, while XY 21/2 Confluyen dos influencias hereditarias: la de los Reyes, más artistas que hombres de acción evidences más as an adverb accompanying a predicate noun (be understood) rather than an object or subject noun—and is accordingly included. Similarly the type XY 11/1 Tenían más de lámparas de petróleo que de espiritual resplandor is excluded because más is substantive. Of the latter type, one ambiguous example appears, GDB 183 De eso debe de saber más que yo, usted que es abogado, where más may be considered to modify saber de eso or to be a substantive and itself modified by de eso; it is not counted among the examples of más ‘rather’. The adverb versus non-adverb status of más may be demonstrated by comparing He has more money than I with He, more than I, has money. And the sentence-adverb versus non-sentence-adverb is illustrated by YZ 52/1 Hay chicas atractivas que no son hermosas, y éstas generalmente llaman más la atención de los hombres que las que son bellas y no expresivas, where the position of más makes it impossible for más to be a sentence adverb—a condition which would be reversed if más que las que son bellas immediately followed éstas. (2) The type JM 215 ¿Me querrás más que tu hermana? is excluded because the first alternative, tú, is unexpressed. (3) The type A los Estados Unidos ... les corresponde avanzar en estas ideas más que las demás naciones is excluded because the alternatives are not parallel; had the second alternative been a las demás naciones the example would have been included. Probably the type BRL 85 Yo te amo más aún que tú me amas, in which A and B are independent clauses, should also be excluded; but this will have to await evidence on whether más bien is possible in such a construction. English avoids a rather coordinating independent clauses; instead, it subordinates one of them: Rather than your calling me, I'll call you.

²⁸ Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada, vol. 35, s.v. Modernismo, page 1231.

²⁹ In cases of apposition, such as XY 28/3 No obstante el alarde de fuerza, más aparente que real, ... su influencia ... empezó ... a debilitarse, the V is considered to be an elliptical ser (supplying, in the example just quoted, the words que era), and is counted as an initial V in the table. Seven instances of apposition occur, four as VMAQB and three as VAMQB.

The verb does not have to be finite—e.g. GDB 266 Santos se sentó rendido, más que de cansancio, de desaliento. In place of a verb (and counted as V in the formula), there may be an adjective in absolute construction, as in the sole example 00 81 Los chicos, atentos, más que a la procesión, a desprender de los cirios la cera chorreada. Though no examples of the type appeared, a construction is possible in which V = A, B—as, adapting one más bien example already quoted, Mas que veía, oía las palabras.

Since más que is now affirmative, A and B, as ‘preferred alternative’ versus ‘unpreferred alternative’, are reversed from what they were in N ... M ... Q. I deemed it best to preserve the syntactic values of A and B rather than their semantic values.

³⁰ These figures include all the examples fitting the definition of más que as sentence adverb—44 which context allows to be considered as sentence adverb, and 22 which context marks as not sentence adverb and which are accordingly included in the statistics of M etc. ~ B.

³¹ This example shows faulty parallelism, the ver standing for al ver. Other instances of faulty parallelism are AME 16/1 Más que el fin de la guerra [instead of Más que fin a la guerra or just Más que a la guerra], deseamos poner fin al inicio de todas las guerras, and M 188 Más parecía de desierto africano que lecho de un río (predicate adjectives matched with predicate nouns are a common occurrence).

³² Three were consulted on this point. The first, who was asked, 'Assuming that there is a difference in meaning between Témanle a él más que a la peste and Más que a la peste, témanle a él, how would you identify the difference?' replied, 'In the second, más is equivalent to más bien'; más bien was not suggested to him. The two others, who did not think of más bien until I asked ‘Which of the two inclines more to más bien?‘ did, however, identify the second example as the one.

³³ El Conflicto Chino-Japonés, Ojeada General, page 11 (Tokio, Nippon Gaiji Kyokai, 25noviembre 1937).

³⁴ In Necesito más que solo a ese hombre we mean 'más cosas'—things is new to man. In Necesito a más que solo a ese hombre we mean 'más hombres'—men 'other than', or new to, this one. But in P 12 enero, 4/7 Operaron a más de 500 prisioneros, más includes the 500 and is accordingly not new to it. In Haciendo esto, recibiremos más de la debida atención de los demás, the meaning is ‘más atención de la debida’, whence más is not new to debida atención, but includes it; if que were employed, the implication would be something like ‘más que la debida atención, protestas’.

³⁵ Mas is considered an adjective when it qualifies a noun used adverbially, as in H 28 Duró más [años] de quince años or AME 11/1 No varió más [libras] de cinco libras.

^35a Que, referring to something ‘other than’ as well as ‘more than’, is the stronger connective, and lends itself to hyperbole. This appears to be the explanation of Tenemos más que suficientes razones para rechazarlo and Las tenemos más que suficientes, a type (not found in the compilation) where de is unacceptable, despite the close similarity to más de mediana estatura. I assume that más que suficientes is a stereotyped exaggeration: ‘We have more (quantity) reasons and then some (thing else)‘. The same would be true of Tengo más que poco.

An alternative analysis of más que suficientes would be ‘reasons that are, in addition to being sufficient, also cogent and persuasive‘—alluding to the descriptive rather than to the quantitative aspect of suficiente, i.e. saying that the reasons are something other than sufficient as well as sufficient. Probably que suggests both más que razones and más que suficientes, thereby gaining in force.

De is, of course, normal in the less ambiguous Tengo más de las razones suficientes para rechazarlo.

³⁶ Fortunately the teacher does not have to depend on this necessarily roundabout description in order to explain más de versus más que in the type (M = A) ~ B with B other than article plus que (the great majority, since with article plus que comprises only ten per cent of the instances of de used in comparison), since the English prepositions over and under are practically fool-proof for más de and menos de: ‘He lost over ten dollars, under half that amount, etc.‘. It will not, however, work for time, e.g. B 86 Deben de ser más de las seis.

³⁷ In order to get this example into the M etc. ~ B mold we may interpret in either of two ways: (1) as (M = A) ~ B by construing 20 gramos as adverbial—‘It weighs less by 20 grams‘; or (2) as AM ~ B by taking menos to be an adjective modifying gramos. The que-de question remains the same in either case. Some examples will not admit of construing the specifying expression that precedes as anything but adverbial. All three examples of such expressions given by Ramsey (§546) are of this nature, e.g. Él es tres años mayor que yo.

³⁸ Type AM ~ B, but included here because the situation is the same.

³⁹ The substantive lo here is not to be confused with the adverbial lo to be treated later.

Lo que is frequent as a pronoun signifying ‘the amount that’ or ‘the number that’. One occasionally has the choice of using either this general quantitative pronoun or a more specific pronoun referring to a definite antecedent and taken in the sense of the quantity-of-that-thing, e.g. Hay más alumnos en el curso de los que [or de lo que] habíamos previsto. The meaning of the context limits this choice; thus in Compra más libros de los que puede leer, lo que would probably not do, since leer demands a reference to something readable, not just to some quantity.

⁴⁰ The one Mexican speaker to whom this was referred said that de would be preferable if came were omitted.

A similar problem is posed by the invented example This week we've bought more sugar than the 10,000 tons that were delivered last week. One Costa Rican objected to the position of sugar in the word-for-word translation, saying that it should be phrased más de las 10,000 toneladas de azúcar. The Spaniard accepted both positions as correct. Both informants demanded de.

⁴¹ It is difficult to find examples other than numerical in which both A and B are pictured as quantifiable and measurable on the same scale, such as would be, e.g. red and pink considered as two degrees of the same color. Thus It is redder than merely pink seems to be impossible in Spanish (It is redder than pink is not a test of this type, since it expands as ‘It is redder than pink is red’, giving M etc. ~ B). With some adverbs, however, though none appear in the compilation, the conditions are satisfied: Viaja más rápidamente que a dos millas por hora. Here we find que, perhaps because of the ambiguity of the double preposition de a, or perhaps because the analogy is with ‘Viaja más rápidamente que a dos millas por hora [es rápidamente]‘.

⁴² Example suggested by Castilian speaker, who rejected que here.

⁴³ Rodolfo N. Luque, quoted in Revista de America, page 5 (Boston, Ginn, 1943). Can the separation of más from lo be an influence here? Certainly the argument that de ... que is preferred to que ... que for the sake of euphony is disproved, since in these two examples euphony and logic call for de, but are not sufficient to compel it.

⁴⁴ Misprint—delete second el de.

⁴⁵ For convenience of analysis (i.e. in order to regard the lo as independent and so set up a pattern of regularity among all uses if adverbial lo) I consider lo to be the verb modifier here, and the accompanying clause (or adjective of the type necesario, dehido, indicado, etc.) to be a modifier of lo. It would, of course, be equally valid to regard lo plus its adjective or clause as a unit adverbial modifier, or to regard the lo as an adverbial article modifying the adjective or clause which is then itself the modifier of the verb.

Examples of the más de lo necesario type show the error of limiting lo in this adverbial use to the combination de lo que.

In examples like Has estudiado más de lo que creí the decision whether to regard lo as adverbial or as substantive depends on whether the verb is regarded as transitive or intransitive. It is the same problem that we face in classifying a lot in He eats a lot—adverbial if we mean ‘He does a lot of eating’, substantive if we mean ‘He eats a lot of stuff’. There is, of course, no problem in Quizás te conviene más de lo que tú crees, since the más and its co-word lo cannot be direct objects and so must be adverbs. The difference is semantically unimportant.

⁴⁶ R. Blanco Fombona, El Modernismo y los Poetas Modernises, page 119 (Madrid, Mundo Latino, 1929).

⁴⁷ Rodolfo N. Luque, quoted in Revista de América, page 5 (Boston, Ginn, 1943). This example was submitted to the criticism of one Castilian speaker, who agreed that both lo's were necessary, but added that it would be equally correct to say Estamos mejor informados ... que lo [= bien informado] está el norteamericano. The latter is analogous to the full form of María es más bonitaque Juanita expanded to María es mas bonita que lo es Juanita, using que when independent clauses are counterbalanced. See §4 for further analysis of this point.

⁴⁸ Luis Crespo in Hispania 29.55 footnote (1946)

⁴⁹ Note redundant de for parallelism.

⁵⁰ Not counted here are examples of mayor or menor with de> assimilated to más and menos.

⁵¹ Here hombre is an adjective; cp. muy hombre.

⁵² The verb of being is assumed as ‘unexpressed’ when B demands it; so this example is 'Una hacienda [que era] más grande que Umay [era]'. But in MA 23 marzo, 7 Stalin tiene mejores amigos en America que en la misma Rusia, B demands tiene, whence 'amigos que son mejores' is an unnecessary assumption.

On this score there is an error of analysis in Academy §428 d. In discussing ‘el verbo que 8e omite en la subordinada’, the example Dionisófanes hizo ... mayor es exclamaciones aún que las que Megacles había hecho is given as an instance of completion, i.e. of the second clause's having its verb. Actually, however, there is a missing verb ser 'Dionisófanes hizo ... mayores exclamaciones aún que las que Megacles había hecho [eran grandes]'. Only by so construing it can one make the analysis of this example square with the Academicians' own analysis of their example in the preceding paragraph: 'En aunque el era andaluz ..., no menos ladrón que Caco ..., se comparan 'el y Caco con respecto al predicado era ladrón.' It is furthermore untrue that the las of the example is an object, as the Academicians call it; the que is objective, but the las (or, if you prefer, the las plus the whole que clause) is subject.

⁵³ Here A = aquí or allí.

⁵⁴ §428 g, h.

⁵⁵ Their unusualness is attested by the fact that one Mexican speaker judged all three as incorrect, insisting on de lo que. The Castilian speaker, on the other hand, proposed Habla más que estudia as equally correct alongside of Habla más de lo que estudia, and accepted Yo te amo más que tú me amas as correct. It may be significant that the three examples are from Spaniards, who comprise only a third of the authors read; it may also be significant that the Castilian speaker is a specialist in Golden Age literature, with the result that colloquial norms are not so vigorously insisted on. My Latin American informants for the most part demanded the adverbial lo.

Though theoretically there can be no absolute semantic identity where differences of form exist, I have been unable to pin down whatever difference in meaning there may be between Juan duerme más que trabaja and Juan duerme más de lo que trabaja (I suspect, however, that lo quantifies it, suggesting more strongly an amount of time).

But there does seem to be a basis of distinction between Ese señor corre más rápido que vuelan los pájaros (acceptable—along with the same sentence with de lo—to one speaker who normally rejected such comparisons without de lo) and Cae más de repente de lo que se desploma unárbol carcomido. In the first, both corre and vuelan imply ‘rápido’; in the second, neither cae nor se desploma necessarily implies ‘de repente’. It thus is somewhat redundant, in the first example, to say más rápido de lo [rápido] que, etc. The same would be true of Huyó más veloz que dispara un cañón.

⁵⁶ The same is true of Ud. vive más indiferentemente que Juan vive enérgicamente, contrasted with Ud. vive más indiferentemente de lo [indiferentemente] que vive Juan.

⁵⁷ As with adjectives, so with adverbs. The example in footnote 56 could be given a lo que and analyzed as Ud. vive-indiferentemente más de lo que Juan vive-enérgicamente.

⁵⁸ See footnote 47. A pro-adverb lo is unlikely because of ambiguity: thus, in order to paraphrase the example in footnotes 56 and 57 as Ud. vive más indiferentemente que lo vive Juan we should have to run the risk of having our second verb considered transitive and the lo regarded as a pronoun.

⁵⁹ Taking más as a quantitative modifier of aclaraciones, we should expect no de lo que; but taking it as an adverb, de lo que would be admissible, even with the verb missing from the B clause, as witness RM 371 La familia urbana está, entre nosotros, más próxima a la familia rural de lo que en Alemania y en Europa en general. So Ud. pide aclaraciones más de lo que las ánimas benditas piden oraciones is possible. But in the original, the position of oraciones probably influences the quantitative interpretation. Note the Academy example with a similar inversion: Se ofrecen a mi remedio más inconvenientes que estrellas tiene el cielo.

⁶⁰ Similar examples of complex B without the verb are in Keniston Syn. Cast. Prose 6.744 and 37.46.

⁶¹ The latter is illustrated by the rule of Hilario Sáenz (Hispania 23.327, 1940), stating: ‘“Than” is translated by que when both members of the comparison are of the same nature’ (illustrated by examples from Bello in which parallel elements, e.g. two nouns or two verbs or two adverbs, stand on either side of que), which, without extensive rationalization, does not help us with examples like Habla más que nunca (where the parallel ahora is not expressed) or No habla más que a Juan (where más itself is the parallel of a Juan). Probably the best working rule for de so far proposed is that of Saenz (page 330), that de is employed when the compared elements stand in a part-whole relationship, e.g. Tengo más de veinte años, where más includes veinte, or Trabajo más de lo que deseo [trabajar], where the amount that I do work includes, and surpasses, the amount that I want to work. Still, there are considerations which make even this definition faulty at times, e.g. the type Raleigh es más que un cigarro, where what Raleigh is includes its cigaret-ness and surpasses it. We use que here despite the part-whole relationship, probably because there is no hint of quantity. quantitativeness seems to be the criterion for de, whether quantity as applied to countable or weighable or otherwise measurable things (más de veinte, más de esa altura), or as applied to the imagined quantification of actions and qualities (Habla más de lo que debe, Es más bonita de lo que parece). In the latter case, since quantification is imagined and figurative, we should not be surprised to find de alternating with que, the que revealing (when it is not used simply to avoid some ambiguity) that the speaker is not picturing the relationship as quantitative.