Sentence Correction

Hi, I really get confused by those two phrases. What is the particular difference in meaning and in grammatical point of view? :roll:

ie.
he set free the more than 500 slaves
he set free more than the 500 slaves

Any in depth explanation is appreciated. Thanks!

same concern for:

closely integrated more than ever before
more closely integrated than ever before

I know it is not about emphasize or something, I can guess the change in meaning but I am not sure if I interpret that correctly. Thanks!

anyone have an idea?? sorry I thought I wrote the topic completely but seems like there was a problem with that

xeqtr wrote:Hi, I really get confused by those two phrases. What is the particular difference in meaning and in grammatical point of view? :roll:

ie.
he set free the more than 500 slaves
he set free more than the 500 slaves

Any in depth explanation is appreciated. Thanks!

We would only use "the more than" if we're referring to a specific group of slaves.

For example:

He set free the more than 500 slaves who were imprisoned by his uncle.

Here's another way to think about it: ignore the "more than" part of the sentence and ask yourself would you say "the slaves" or "slaves". If you would say "the slaves", then you use "the more than". If you would say "slaves", then you use "more than".

In our example above, we'd say:

....the 500 slaves who were imprisoned by his uncle

so we use "the more than".

If it had simply been "500 slaves" then we would have said:

He set free more than 500 slaves.

In your second quote, you ask about when we'd use:

he set free more than the 500 slaves

That suggestion could be a stand alone sentence and would indicate that not only did he set free 500 slaves, but also someone/something else.

For example:

He set free more than the 500 slaves. He also set free 100 horses.

Thanks Stuart, great job..now that's much clearer to me!

thx lunarpower for the addition