Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely

[aspirant2011]

Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, turned the tide of English victories in her country by liberating the city of Orleans and she persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne.

(A) she persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne
(B) persuaded Charles VII of France in claiming his throne
(C) persuading that the throne be claimed by Charles VII of France
(D) persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne
(E) persuading that Charles VII of France should claim the throne

[spoiler]OA: After some discussion. Please explain your answer choice[/spoiler]

[force5]

IMO D

Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, turned the tide of English victories in her country by liberating the city of Orleans and she persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne.

(A) she persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne
(B) persuaded Charles VII of France in claiming his throne
(C) persuading that the throne be claimed by Charles VII of France
(D) persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne
(E) persuading that Charles VII of France should claim the throne

turned the tide ... and ...persuaded is parallel. "persuaded in" is unidiomatic. "persuaded to" is correct.

Hope it helps

[aspirant2011]

Hi Force5,

Yup the OA is D but I am confused in one thing i.e "by liberating the city of Orleans and"------> dont you feel that after "and" an "ing" form should have come because the sentence is saying by liberating i.e the first reason and then has a conjunction "and"...............and also this "and" should have been preceded by a comma in order to make it a independent clause..........please correct me if i am wrong..........

[raunekk]

parallelism

IMO D

turned the tide of English victories..... and persuaded Charles VII of France to claim

[bubbliiiiiiii]

Hi Force5,

Yup the OA is D but I am confused in one thing i.e "by liberating the city of Orleans and"------> dont you feel that after "and" an "ing" form should have come because the sentence is saying by liberating i.e the first reason and then has a conjunction "and"...............and also this "and" should have been preceded by a comma in order to make it a independent clause..........please correct me if i am wrong..........

I think I have got an idea of what you are asking. If it is that persuade should be added ing to make it parallel with liberating then please make note of this.

The 'and' after liberating makes the 'turned the tide' to be parallel with 'persuaded', not with liberating (as per your thought).

There is no particular grammar rule to identify such type of constructions but can only be recognized when the intent of the sentence is understood.

Hope it helps.

[force5]

Hi aspirant 2011

When you're trying to sort out parallelism, you need to think about meaning -- which ideas go together. Look at the sentence:

"Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, turned the tide of English victories in her country by liberating the city of Orleans and she persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne."

So how did she turn the tide of English victories? By liberating the city of Orleans. Was persuading Charles VII to claim his throne part of "turning the tide of English victories," or was it another action that forms a pair with "liberated the city of Orleans"?

The meaning that makes the most sense is that she did two things:
1. she turned the tide of English victories [in other words, broke their winning streak and made things go the other way] by liberating the city of Orleans, and then
2. she persuaded Charles the VII to claim his throne.

It doesn't make as much sense to say that part of how she broke the English winning streak was by persuading Charles VII to claim his throne, and so it shouldn't be "persuading."

The verb "claimed" is irrelevant, because there's no way that that action forms part of a pair with any other action - the sentence isn't saying "she claimed to be divinely inspired, turned the tide..., and persuaded......"

Instead, "claimed to be divinely inspired" is just modifying Joan of Arc, and so shouldn't influence the forms of the later verbs.

One more thing...

If i consider liberating.... and persuading parallel... then liberating and persuading should be same part of speech.

liberating is an adjective here however persuading is not a noun here.

[Buix0065]

Hi aspirant 2011

When you're trying to sort out parallelism, you need to think about meaning -- which ideas go together. Look at the sentence:

"Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, turned the tide of English victories in her country by liberating the city of Orleans and she persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne."

So how did she turn the tide of English victories? By liberating the city of Orleans. Was persuading Charles VII to claim his throne part of "turning the tide of English victories," or was it another action that forms a pair with "liberated the city of Orleans"?

The meaning that makes the most sense is that she did two things:
1. she turned the tide of English victories [in other words, broke their winning streak and made things go the other way] by liberating the city of Orleans, and then
2. she persuaded Charles the VII to claim his throne.

It doesn't make as much sense to say that part of how she broke the English winning streak was by persuading Charles VII to claim his throne, and so it shouldn't be "persuading."

The verb "claimed" is irrelevant, because there's no way that that action forms part of a pair with any other action - the sentence isn't saying "she claimed to be divinely inspired, turned the tide..., and persuaded......"

Instead, "claimed to be divinely inspired" is just modifying Joan of Arc, and so shouldn't influence the forms of the later verbs.

One more thing...

If i consider liberating.... and persuading parallel... then liberating and persuading should be same part of speech.

liberating is an adjective here however persuading is not a noun here.

Hi Force5,

Thanks for this explanation, are there any other ways to identify the answer here than comprehending the meaning? I struggled with this one, because
in my mind, part of turning the tide of war could have been persuading Charles VII to claim his throne. There isn't enough context to refute that.

In order for the 2nd statement to be another action outside of turning the tide of war wouldn't it need to be "...and she also..." ?

Over all what I'm struggling with is, in these situations how to determine if parallelism needs to be had between turned and persuaded, vs. liberating and persuading.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

[tanviet]

why A is wrong?

Because "she" is reduntand?

or

because we need "comma+and" to connect 2 independent clauses and A lack "comma" before "and"

Ron said that the above rule is not absolute but the rule is correct when the independent clause is long

So, we have to remember what is long and what is short/

pls, explain.

[tinku143]

Joan of Arc,
a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired,
turned the tide of English victories in her country by liberating the city of Orléans and she persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne.
Joan turned…. And persuaded should be the parallel list.
Persuaded to is the correct idiom

(A) she persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne

(B) persuaded Charles VII of France in claiming his throne
Persuade in claiming is the incorrect idiom

(C) persuading that the throne be claimed by Charles VII of France
Joan turned… and persuading is not parallel.
(D) persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne
This is the correct answer.
(E) persuading that Charles VII of France should claim the throne
Pesuading and turned is not parallel.