Sentence Correction

Among the objects found in the excavated temple were small terra-cotta effigies left by supplicants who were either asking the goddess Bona Dea's aid in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help.

(A) in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help
(B) in healing physical and mental ills and to thank her for helping
(C) in healing physical and mental ills, and thanking her for helping
(D) to heal physical and mental ills or to thank her for such help
(E) to heal physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help


The question has a parallelism issue..with asking and thanking and also either or .So this narrows down the choice to A & E . OG says Aid in needed here so OA is A . Acoording to me , asking is the verb here , why is Aid in correct and not aid to?

shivani.magan wrote: Acoording to me , asking is the verb here , why is Aid in correct and not aid to?

yes "asking" is a verb - but how it is related to the preposition(to/in)used here. Please clarify !!

In fact there are some things that do not have a grammatical explanation - this is completely usage and meaning dependent.

I have a pistol in my pocket.
i have a book to read.

here both "to" and "in" are not interchangeable. So to end up - "X's aid in" is the correct idiom

I hope this helps some.

yes "asking" is a verb - but how it is related to the preposition(to/in)used here. Please clarify !!

In fact there are some things that do not have a grammatical explanation - this is completely usage and meaning dependent.

I have a pistol in my pocket.
i have a book to read.

here both "to" and "in" are not interchangeable. So to end up - "X's aid in" is the correct idiom

I hope this helps some.



If asking is the verb , then aid in the noun . That is why i picked aid to and not aid in . Can you explain why aid to is incorrect?

avik.ch wrote:

shivani.magan wrote: Acoording to me , asking is the verb here , why is Aid in correct and not aid to?

yes "asking" is a verb - but how it is related to the preposition(to/in)used here. Please clarify !!

In fact there are some things that do not have a grammatical explanation - this is completely usage and meaning dependent.

I have a pistol in my pocket.
i have a book to read.

here both "to" and "in" are not interchangeable. So to end up - "X's aid in" is the correct idiom

I hope this helps some.

If asking is the verb , then aid in the noun . That is why i picked aid to and not aid in . Can you explain why aid to is incorrect?

shivani.magan wrote: If asking is the verb , then aid in the noun . That is why i picked aid to and not aid in . Can you explain why aid to is incorrect?

here "aid" is the noun and not "aid in".

Bona dea's aid
Bona Dea --> adjective, Aid --> noun,

Company's earning
Company --> adjective, earning --> noun. This would be more clear if you convert this into --
The earning of the company : "of the company" is the adjective for the noun "earning".

here -- "in healing ...." is a prepositional phrase.

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1. International development promotes aid to the Artisans.

When we have a receiver of action as this -- > to + concrete logical receiver is used

The board gave the teacher a raise in salaries. -- > here there are two object,
direct object - raise
indirect object - the teacher.

The indirect object at time can be changed to an adverb of reception with to + receiver of the action.

The board gave a raise in salaries to the teacher.

When we dont have a receiver of action --- > "to" is not used.

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2. When we have no receiver - that is when are adding an adverb of place/cause - "in" is apt.

International development promotes aid in Africa. -- adverb of place
Africa received International development's aid in developing.... --- adverb of cause

The second templates is similar to this problem - as they were asking Bona Dea's aid for something ( for a cause or help). - so "aid in" is perfect.

Hope this helps !!

Among the objects found in the excavated temple were small terra-cotta effigies left by supplicants who were either asking the goddess Bona Dea's aid in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help.

(A) in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help
(B) in healing physical and mental ills and to thank her for helping
(C) in healing physical and mental ills, and thanking her for helping
(D) to heal physical and mental ills or to thank her for such help
(E) to heal physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help

IMO:A