Sentence Correction

Hi Ron,

I want to understand "COORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS preceded by COMMA" structure and how it affects parallelism and the meaning of a sentence in GMAT

I will refer to few official questions to understand this better.

42) Australian embryologists have found evidence that suggests that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal, and its trunk originally evolving as a kind of snorkel.

(A) that suggests that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal, and its trunk originally evolving
(B) that has suggested the elephant descended from an aquatic animal, its trunk originally evolving
(C) suggesting that the elephant had descended from an aquatic animal with its trunk originally evolved
(D) to suggest that the elephant had descended from an aquatic animal and its trunk originally evolved
(E) to suggest that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal and that its trunk originally evolved


I came across one of your explanations for the above question in BTG (https://www.beatthegmat.com/australian-e ... 38107.html) in which you have explained the below

if you have a comma before a coordinating conjunction - as in "X, and Y" - then X and Y MUST be parallel clauses.

with this in mind, let's turn to (a):

Australian embryologists have found evidence that suggests that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal,
and
its trunk originally evolved as a kind of snorkel.

in other words, the embryologists have found evidence regarding the elephant's ancestry - but NOT about the trunk (this is just stated as a standalone fact).

I think that you have explained it very well , and that when you said parallel clauses, you meant only parallel independent clauses. But with this understanding when I tackled the below problem few doubts crept into my mind.

According to scholars, the earliest writing was probably not a direct rendering of speech, but was more likely to begin as a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication, and only later merged with spoken language.

(A) was more likely to begin as
(B) more than likely began as
(C) more than likely beginning from
(D) it was more than likely begun from
(E) it was more likely that it began

In this case the OA is option B. Now if we substitute the option B in the original sentence it will read as below.

According to scholars, the earliest writing was probably not a direct rendering of speech, but more than likely began as a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication, and only later merged with spoken language.

In the above sentence there are majorly 3 parts connected by coordinating conjunctions but and and
Part 1: According to scholars, the earliest writing was probably not a direct rendering of speech
Part 2: more than likely began as a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication
Part 3: only later merged with spoken language.

According to your explanation to the previous question as this question has comma + coordinating conjunction structure, the above three parts should be parallel clauses.

My first question is whether Part 2 and Part 3 can be treated as parallel clauses? I ask this question because I can see that the subjects are missing in part 2 and Part 3.
Now if we can assume the subject "the earliest writing" for Part 2 and Part 3 the 3 parts will read as below

Part 1: According to scholars, the earliest writing was probably not a direct rendering of speech
Part 2: The earliest writing more than likely began as a separate and distinct symbolic system of
communication.
Part 3: The earliest writing only later merged with spoken language.

Now my second question is that if these are 3 independent clauses won't it mean that only the Part 1 is "According to scholars" but not the Part 2 and Part 3.? Here I am applying the same logic which you have explained/applied for the previous question.

Australian embryologists have found evidence that suggests that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal,
and
its trunk originally evolved as a kind of snorkel.

in other words, the embryologists have found evidence regarding the elephant's ancestry - but NOT about the trunk (this is just stated as a standalone fact).

Please share your views.

Hi Celidh,

Thanks for your reply. i am still a little confused with your explanation. kindly help me to understand the same. According to me what you are trying to say here is different from what Ron said earlier (highlighted in the previous post)

Australian embryologists have found evidence that suggests that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal ,and its trunk originally evolved as a kind of snorkel.

What Ron said is that in the above sentence if the COMMA+AND structure is present(which actually is present) then the above sentence will be interpreted as below. i am quoting him below

if you have a comma before a coordinating conjunction - as in "X, and Y" - then X and Y MUST be parallel clauses.

with this in mind, let's turn to (a):

Australian embryologists have found evidence that suggests that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal,
and
its trunk originally evolved as a kind of snorkel.

in other words, the embryologists have found evidence regarding the elephant's ancestry - but NOT about the trunk (this is just stated as a standalone fact).

and that's why i think the answer to the above question is answer E which removes the COMMA from the original sentence and also puts a that before trunk.

To sum it up ,Ron says that in the above sentence these are the two clauses

Clause 1: Australian embryologists have found evidence that suggests that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal

,and

Clause 2: its trunk originally evolved as a kind of snorkel

But if i am not wrong when you say that

In the elephant example, it's easy to see that we have parallel clauses:

Australian embryologists have found evidence that suggests that:
1) the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal, and
2) its trunk originally evolved as a kind of snorkel.

You interpret the sentence as below

Clause 1: Australian embryologists have found evidence that suggests that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal,
and
Clause 2: Australian embryologists have found evidence that suggests that its trunk originally evolved as a kind of snorkel.

Now these are two different interpretations leading to two different meanings.Please clarify whether i am missing something here.