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Is it

He had more experience than I, he having produced more than 10 songs already.

or

He had more experience than I, him having produced more than 10 songs already.

The latter sounds more natural to me, but the former seems more grammatically consistent—alas I don't know what the parts are called to delve further. The questions Is "all that he have" correct? and https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/119167/he-have-a-point-is-this-correct were all I could find and didn't seem specifically relevant, AFAICT.

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    neither. Having produced more than 10 songs already, he had more experience than I - or He had more experience than I, having produced less than his 10 songs
    – mplungjan
    Sep 16, 2013 at 7:53
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    @mplungjan, your second example does not make sense. The participle modifies the subject of the sentence, so it would mean that he had produced less than his own ten songs. “He had more experience than I/me, having produced more than ten songs already” is fine.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Sep 16, 2013 at 9:22

3 Answers 3

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Young's Literal Translation of the Bible contains:

[Luke 15]: 13 `And not many days after, having gathered all together, the younger son went abroad to a far country, and there he scattered his substance, living riotously; 14 and he having spent all, there came a mighty famine on that country, and himself began to be in want...

But I'd agree that the inclusion of the 'he' is archaic (not 'wrong!') here.

However, I wouldn't quibble about the following example (B) of the usage:

(A) John and Jennie each had more experience than I / me, John (for instance) having produced more than 10 songs already.

...

(B) John and his sister each had more experience than I / me, he having produced more than 10 songs already.

(Add the 'for instance' in A / B if you wish - it's logical.)

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  • In your examples with two people, where the pronoun disambiguates, it is natural enough. In the asker’s examples, though, I find it unnatural in contemporary English.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Sep 16, 2013 at 9:21
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    Yes. I thought I'd covered that. Though OP queried the grammaticality rather than the idiomaticity.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Sep 16, 2013 at 10:41
  • Thank you for finding that passage. The use of "he" actually doesn't sound too archaic to me, and this is for my own writing, so with the vote of confidence (that "he" isn't wrong), I think I'll use "he."
    – Andrew Cheong
    Sep 18, 2013 at 7:16
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My suggestions as answer instead of comment with correction

Neither. The first, albeit possibly correct, sounds weird/archaic

  • Having produced more than 10 songs already, he had more experience than I

  • He had more experience than I, having produced more than 10 songs already.

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  • Thanks; your second suggestion is where I started, but I wasn't satisfied with the (syntactic) ambiguity of who "produced more than 10 songs already." I do like your first suggestion.
    – Andrew Cheong
    Sep 18, 2013 at 7:12
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This is a gerund phrase, so the usual recommendation is actually possessive:

…his having produced…

However, I usually hear the object form (me/you/him/her/us/them) in speech:

…without me being aware…

In your specific case, though, I would omit the pronoun altogether:

He had more experience than I, having produced more than 10 songs already.

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  • The usual recommendation, in my opinion, is 'use the form that achieves the meaning or emphasis you want': I didn't see him dancing just states the fact you didn't see him performing (he may not have danced); / I didn't see his dancing states the fact that you missed his routine. Both are perfectly grammatical. The first variant of dancing lies nearer the verbal end of the spectrum, the second nearer the nounal.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Sep 16, 2013 at 12:40
  • @JonPurdy - Thanks for the suggestion; that's actually where I started, but wasn't satisfied with the (syntactic) ambiguity of who "produced more than 10 songs already."
    – Andrew Cheong
    Sep 18, 2013 at 7:11

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