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Correct usage of Infinitives

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by sungoal » Sun Aug 14, 2011 2:24 am
Hi,

Please help me understand the below sentence:

For the Stegosaurus, a dinosaur from the late Jurassic period, the seventeen bony plates embedded in its back were necessary elements for survival, to regulate its temperature throughout its bus-sized body and to protect it from much larger carnivores.

Can anybody please tell why the use of infinitives in the above sentence is incorrect?

Isn't "were necessary elements" is implied with "to regulate and to protect" and therefore maintain parallelism in the sentence?
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by Ilana@EconomistGMAT » Sun Aug 14, 2011 3:16 am
The problem is not the use of the infinitive per se, but the lack of parallelism between the prepositions: for survival, to regulate its temperature throughout its bus-sized body and to protect it

The sentence should either use three items that begin with 'for' or three items that begin with 'to' (such as the infinitive).

So a list of three infinitives: 'to survive, to regulate, and to protect' - would correct the damaged parallelism.
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by sungoal » Sun Aug 14, 2011 3:27 am
cant we consider for survival, to regulate and to protect as prepositional phrases?
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by sungoal » Sun Aug 14, 2011 3:28 am
cant we consider for survival, to regulate and to protect as prepositional phrases?
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by Ilana@EconomistGMAT » Sun Aug 14, 2011 3:30 am
No. The only phrase that could be considered a prepositional phrase is 'for survival'. A prepositional phrase is made up of a preposition + a noun. Survival is a noun, so 'for survival' is a prepositional phrase. The remaining two items in the list are not prepositional phrases because 'regulate' and 'protect' are not nouns, but the base form of the verb. As you correctly pointed out in your original question 'to protect' and 'to regulate' are both infinitives - verbal forms.
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by e-GMAT » Mon Aug 15, 2011 9:24 am
Great discussion. Even though the original has been clarified by @Ilana, I am tempted to respond to the PM, since this sentence exemplifies the importance of understanding the meaning appropriately.

For the Stegosaurus, a dinosaur from the late Jurassic period, the seventeen bony plates embedded in its back were necessary elements for survival, to regulate its temperature throughout its bus-sized body and to protect it from much larger carnivores.

The sentence states that 17 bony plates embedded in the back of the specific dinosaur were necessary elements for survival. This is the core message.
Then the sentence goes on to explain how these bony plates helped with the survival
1: these plates helped with regulation of temperature of its body
2: these plates helped by protecting it from larger carnivores

So as you can see "to regulate" and "to protect" really are the two elements that explains how these 17 bony plates were essential for survival. So in a way you can say that these two elements explain the preceding clause and hence I am suspecting the correct construction here is regulating...and protecting...- so comma + verb-ing construction. (please post the complete sentence here)

Now from meaning perspective, why is "to regulate" and "to protect" incorrect.
Lets remove the fluff from the sentence and review it:

17 bony plates were necessary elements for survival to regulate the body temperature and to protect from larger animals. - This sentence implies that the purpose of survival was "to regulate the temperature...". This is not correct. The logical meaning here is as explained above - regulating and protecting explain how these parts were necessary for survival.

17 bony plates were required to regulate the body temperature and to protect from larger animals. - This sentence is correct. It implies that the purpose of these 17 bony plates was two fold - to regulate the temperature and to protect from larger animals.

Thanks,
Payal
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by sungoal » Mon Aug 15, 2011 6:45 pm
e-GMAT wrote:Great discussion. Even though the original has been clarified by @Ilana, I am tempted to respond to the PM, since this sentence exemplifies the importance of understanding the meaning appropriately.

For the Stegosaurus, a dinosaur from the late Jurassic period, the seventeen bony plates embedded in its back were necessary elements for survival, to regulate its temperature throughout its bus-sized body and to protect it from much larger carnivores.

The sentence states that 17 bony plates embedded in the back of the specific dinosaur were necessary elements for survival. This is the core message.
Then the sentence goes on to explain how these bony plates helped with the survival
1: these plates helped with regulation of temperature of its body
2: these plates helped by protecting it from larger carnivores

So as you can see "to regulate" and "to protect" really are the two elements that explains how these 17 bony plates were essential for survival. So in a way you can say that these two elements explain the preceding clause and hence I am suspecting the correct construction here is regulating...and protecting...- so comma + verb-ing construction. (please post the complete sentence here)

Now from meaning perspective, why is "to regulate" and "to protect" incorrect.
Lets remove the fluff from the sentence and review it:

17 bony plates were necessary elements for survival to regulate the body temperature and to protect from larger animals. - This sentence implies that the purpose of survival was "to regulate the temperature...". This is not correct. The logical meaning here is as explained above - regulating and protecting explain how these parts were necessary for survival.

17 bony plates were required to regulate the body temperature and to protect from larger animals. - This sentence is correct. It implies that the purpose of these 17 bony plates was two fold - to regulate the temperature and to protect from larger animals.

Thanks,
Payal

thanks for the information payal.

But I still have one doubt though already explained by Ilalna, but still not clear.

Why this sentence is wrong if we consider it this way:

were necessary elements for survival, were necessary elements to regulate and were necessary elements to protect
As "were necessary elements" is common, so we can consider it as "were necessary elements for survival, to regulate and to protect" ....

Could you clear my above mentioned doubt?
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by e-GMAT » Mon Aug 15, 2011 7:16 pm
...were necessary elements for survival, were necessary elements to regulate and were necessary elements to protect...

Per your analysis the above sentence has a parallel list.

Lets look at the list:
were necessary elements
1: for survival,
2: to regulate and
3: to protect

The list above is not parallel since these elements are neither logically nor grammatically parallel. Logical part I have covered in my post above. And grammatical part has been covered by Ilana.

1: for survival, - Prepositional Phrase - preposition + noun
2: to regulate and - to verb or an infinitive
3: to protect - to verb or an infinitive

Element 1 is not parallel to elements 2 and 3.
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by lunarpower » Thu Aug 25, 2011 2:03 am
sungoal wrote:Hi,

Please help me understand the below sentence:

For the Stegosaurus, a dinosaur from the late Jurassic period, the seventeen bony plates embedded in its back were necessary elements for survival, to regulate its temperature throughout its bus-sized body and to protect it from much larger carnivores.

Can anybody please tell why the use of infinitives in the above sentence is incorrect?

Isn't "were necessary elements" is implied with "to regulate and to protect" and therefore maintain parallelism in the sentence?
i received a pm about this thread.

where did you get this sentence? it's very badly written, so i would imagine that the source from which it came is going to be questionable pretty much across the board.
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