Question:
haven't thought this through carefully, but isn't it probable that the
difference between the two is a parts-of-speech thing?
"From" is a preposition, and takes a noun or pronoun object: "He is
different from his father."
"Than" is a subordinate conjunction and is therefore followed by a
subordinate clause: "She does this differently than you" (the verb "do" is
understood).
Would that cover the possibilities? It would make the point into one
similar to the difference between "like" and "as," the former being a
preposition and the latter a conjunction.
It also covers the examples cited by Alice Whitfield in her quotations
from the Merriam-Webster, except for that horrible Thomas L. Peacock usage of
"different to," which should clearly be "different from" (the noun clause
beginning with "what" is the object of the preposition).
P.S. I realize that in this age of "whole language" teaching, and in view
of the general scorn that is often heaped upon the mechanical (or even lively)
teaching of such things as parts of speech, what I've suggested might not be
understood by many. But it makes some sense, I think, to those who know enough
about English grammar to understand the terminology.
Answer:
I don't think it's as clear-cut as that. In, say, "He is taller than
his father", "than" can be regarded as either a conjunction (with "is
tall" implicitly completing the clause), or a preposition. In
practice, how you analyse it doesn't matter until you come to "His
father is taller than [he|him]". (That's another question, but I hope
it illustrates my point - that "than" isn't always a conjunction.)
In British English, "She does this differently than you" would be
regarded as non-standard, and "from" preferred here too. So, to a
British ear at least, "than" is doing exactly the same job as "from",
ie it is a preposition, merely a less standard one than "from".
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