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Weird construction: English experts kindly comment

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by Gaurav 2013-fall » Mon Apr 23, 2012 12:55 am
Could an english expert explain the below kind of sentence construction. We dont see such constructions very often. I would use something like ...Tourists at the beach stroill.... and often see children doing........ I have never seen such construction.


Tourists at the beach have often strolled along the sandy shore and saw children playing in the ocean, whose toys lie strewn along the water like shells.



saw children playing in the ocean, whose toys lie



saw children playing in the ocean, whose toys were lying



saw children playing in the ocean, with toys lying



seen children playing in the ocean, with toys lying



seen children playing in the ocean, whose toys have lain




[spoiler]OA is D & source princeton review[/spoiler]
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by bubbliiiiiiii » Mon Apr 23, 2012 1:37 am
I could narrow down to C and D but could not decide between saw and seen. :(

I first picked up D considering parallelism 'have often strolled' and 'have often seen' but then moved to C, thinking have and saw could also be parallel.

Experts please advise.
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by GMATGuruNY » Mon Apr 23, 2012 3:15 am
Gaurav 2013-fall wrote:Could an english expert explain the below kind of sentence construction. We dont see such constructions very often. I would use something like ...Tourists at the beach stroill.... and often see children doing........ I have never seen such construction.


Tourists at the beach have often strolled along the sandy shore and saw children playing in the ocean, whose toys lie strewn along the water like shells.

saw children playing in the ocean, whose toys lie

saw children playing in the ocean, whose toys were lying

saw children playing in the ocean, with toys lying

seen children playing in the ocean, with toys lying

seen children playing in the ocean, whose toys have lain


[spoiler]OA is D & source princeton review[/spoiler]
Verbs in a list must be PARALLEL.
In A, B and C, saw (past) should be in the same tense as have strolled (present perfect). Eliminate A, B and C.

In E, whose seems to refer to ocean. Since D avoids this issue, eliminate E.

The correct answer is D.

The OA here employs ELLIPSIS: the omission of words whose presence is understood. D implies the following:
Tourists have often strolled along the shore and [have often] seen children playing.
The words in brackets have been omitted, but their presence is understood.
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by Gaurav 2013-fall » Mon Apr 23, 2012 3:37 am
Thanks Mitch for the answer.

But, my question is more towards the construction of the sentence. I have never seen a construction like this, that is, 'tourists have often strolled on the beach and seen children playing in the ocean'. I dont know why this doesn't sound like a grammatically correct sentence.
Could you explain in what situation we would use such construction.

Thanks in advance!
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by GMATGuruNY » Mon Apr 23, 2012 3:53 am
Gaurav 2013-fall wrote:Thanks Mitch for the answer.

But, my question is more towards the construction of the sentence. I have never seen a construction like this, that is, 'tourists have often strolled on the beach and seen children playing in the ocean'. I dont know why this doesn't sound like a grammatically correct sentence.
Could you explain in what situation we would use such construction.

Thanks in advance!
An SC in the OG11 that employs the same construction:

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by GmatKiss » Mon Apr 23, 2012 4:12 am
Tourists at the beach have often strolled along the sandy shore and saw children playing in the ocean, whose toys lie strewn along the water like shells.

saw children playing in the ocean, whose toys lie

saw children playing in the ocean, whose toys were lying

saw children playing in the ocean, with toys lying

(have) seen children playing in the ocean, with toys lying

(have) seen children playing in the ocean, whose toys have lain

IMO: D
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