Comparative Statement - Use of Than

sammy400

In the following statement, what two items are being compared and what is the quality or feature of comparison?
1. He couldn't dream any bigger than emulating his older brother and cousin.

ssssdu24-1-1-1-1

Comparing how big any dreams could be with the dream of emulating his older brother and cousin; this specific dream is bigger than any others that he could dream.

hotranchsauce

In my opinion:

Him dreaming bigger (X)
than (compared)
simply emulating two people (Y)
is not possible. (mutually exclusive)

You're comparing possibilities, one is 100% and the other is 0%.

OR

For the statement to work, I think it would have to read as follows:

He couldn't dream any bigger than THE DREAM of emulating his older brother and cousin.

In which case, it's very simple to see that you're comparing the "bigness" of a dream and what his limitations are. It's stating how big his dream can be by comparing the upper bounds of his dream capabilities.

Also helpful:

THAN definition:
(1) used to introduce the second element in a comparison.
"they go out less than they did when they first moved to Paris"
(2) used in expressions introducing an exception or contrast.
"they observe rather than act"

Rewrite the sentence with rather than.

He couldn't dream any bigger RATHER than emulating his older brother and cousin.

This holds it's meaning and makes more sense. This is not a simple comparison statement, it's an exception statement. Which supports my first idea I wrote about above.