Sentence Correction

mundasingh123 wrote:Ashley ,
What i am basically asking is
Isnt
The movie was NOT a total flop BUT gained a cult following after its release .
This is exactly what A says
Is the above sentence correct ?
was Not noun but verbed


What about the following sentence

The movie was NOT a total failure BUT climbing up the popularity charts after the second week .
Doesnt the was before NOT serve as helping verb for "climbing "
Plesae Help

I'd say your first sentence is okay, but in order to justify it, I wouldn't think of it as

was Not noun but verbed

If you think of it like that, it seems that parallelism is violated. But if you think of it instead as "The movie VERB PHRASE but VERB PHRASE (our two verb phrases being "was not..." and "gained...")," then you've made an argument that parallelism is preserved, so you're okay -- just as in the case with the "Earliest Writing" sentence above. Notice that we are NOT stretching the "was" to apply to the second part in this case, because we don't have to and it doesn't benefit us here.

Your second sentence seems to resist justification, though...

If I don't stretch the "was" to apply to the second part, I'll have "The movie VERB PHRASE but PARTICIPIAL PHRASE" ("was not..." and "gaining..." being your verb phrase and participial phrase, respectively) -- and in that case, I won't have either parallelism OR a complete sentence, since if "gaining..." is a participial phrase, it'll want to latch onto a subject it never actually gets.

If I DO stretch the WAS to apply to both parts, I'll have "The movie SIMPLE PAST TENSE but PAST PROGRESSIVE TENSE." In that case, you could argue that you have a complete sentence, but you couldn't argue that you have parallelism.

If I DON'T count the "was" towards EITHER part, I'll have "The movie was not NOUN but PARTICIPIAL PHRASE," so again, I wouldn't be preserving parallelism.

So in conclusion, your first sentence is a YES and your second one is a NO

Hope this helps!

Thanks Ashley for the explanation .
I would like to clarify again
whether we are allowed to see
was NOT Noun BUT Verbed
as a
Simple Past But Verbed , which you said is correct

Ashley , Excellent explanation . You really clarified a lot of things for me
1 thing
You said

instead, I considered "beginning" to be a present participle constituting part of a modifier ("beginning from a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication"). If we view it in that fashion, THEN we wind up with a sentence fragment, because that modifier never gets a subject after the comma to modify.

But Ashley doesnt "the earliest writing " before was NOT X, But Y and Z get modified by the "beginning " participle .I mean doesnt "the earliest writing " serve as subject for "beginning " participle as well

Ashley@VeritasPrep wrote:

vikram4689 wrote:Thanks a lot Ashley. I have one doubt regarding option A. Isn't "was more likely to begin as" in past tense. If yes then all the verbs are in past tense.(grammatically ||)

For logically ||, i will dig into the meaning. As "was probably not a direct rendering of speech" suggests that earliest was not a direct rendering, "was more likely to begin" suggests that earliest writing was not likely to begin as symbolic system of communication.

Please point out the mistake w.r.t. grammatical and logical ||.

Hi Vikram,

Thanks for asking this, because I didn't really make it clear in my last post. The tense error introduced by saying "was more likely to begin" in not in the "was" part -- you're right, that's still past tense -- but rather in the "to begin." Since "writing" (our subject) HAS ALREADY begun, I can't use an infinitive that gives no indication of that fact. I could say "to have begun" -- that would be fine -- because that would be a perfect tense infinitive, and the perfect would do the work of situating this beginning in the past. But I can't use just a regular, non-perfect infinitive.

You could only use a regular (non-perfect) infinitive with a past tense verb preceding it if the action in the infinitive were still were contemporaneous with or in the future of the time of the sentence. For instance, I could say

"Tom was likely to be out in his field" if he either was or wasn't out in his field at the time that it was likely that he was there.

or "The race was likely to begin at 10 AM sharp" if I were forecasting -- *sometime prior to 10 AM * -- this prompt beginning.

But I couldn't say, speaking from any point after the race had started, that "the race was likely to begin at 10AM." If I were flashing back to what I had thought earlier that morning, I could potentially get away with phrasing it like that, but generally at any point after the start of the race, I'd be locked into saying either, "The race was likely to have begun at 10 AM, but it didn't" -- or "The race likely began at 10AM," if I weren't absolutely sure whether or not it had actually begun then.

Well i think i made the mistake because i did not know the infinitive concept. Am i correct in saying that "was more than like to begin" is in PAST tense but "to begin" is NOT in accordance with past tense. So, though the tense is correct, construction of infinitive is INCORRECT.

Now coming to infinitive, from the post i concluded that,for CORRECT construction, infinitives should be in the same tense (though they do not change the tense as they do not act as verbs & this is the reason i did not focus on them so much). Please correct me ( i am trying to assimilate this concept so that i do not make mistake on this concept).

mundasingh123 wrote:Thanks Ashley for the explanation .
I would like to clarify again
whether we are allowed to see
was NOT Noun BUT Verbed
as a
Simple Past But Verbed , which you said is correct

Yes that is correct because it is now follows "X but Y" idiomatic form and as you mentioned X & Y are in Past tense so they are ||.

mundasingh123 wrote:Ashley , Excellent explanation . You really clarified a lot of things for me
1 thing
You said

instead, I considered "beginning" to be a present participle constituting part of a modifier ("beginning from a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication"). If we view it in that fashion, THEN we wind up with a sentence fragment, because that modifier never gets a subject after the comma to modify.

But Ashley doesnt "the earliest writing " before was NOT X, But Y and Z get modified by the "beginning " participle .I mean doesnt "the earliest writing " serve as subject for "beginning " participle as well

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

Consider the clause: The earliest writing was probably not a direct rendering of speech, but more than likely beginning from a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication.

Here beginning would modify noun in Y if sentence is of form - S + V + Not X, but Y + beginning.

But sentence construction itself does not mean anything and in a wrong sentence it is kind of impossible to find what is referring to what.

In that case
even

was NOT Noun BUT Verbed

should be incorrect because here the bit after BUT is just verbed with No subject .Waiting for Ashley to Reply .

vikram4689 wrote:

mundasingh123 wrote:Ashley , Excellent explanation . You really clarified a lot of things for me
1 thing
You said

instead, I considered "beginning" to be a present participle constituting part of a modifier ("beginning from a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication"). If we view it in that fashion, THEN we wind up with a sentence fragment, because that modifier never gets a subject after the comma to modify.

But Ashley doesnt "the earliest writing " before was NOT X, But Y and Z get modified by the "beginning " participle .I mean doesnt "the earliest writing " serve as subject for "beginning " participle as well

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

Consider the clause: The earliest writing was probably not a direct rendering of speech, but more than likely beginning from a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication.

Here beginning would modify noun in Y if sentence is of form - S + V + Not X, but Y + beginning.

But sentence construction itself does not mean anything and in a wrong sentence it is kind of impossible to find what is referring to what.

What you suggest is a different topic and not what i am asking because C doesnt have a subject and that i what i am curious about

mundasingh123 wrote:In that case
even

was NOT Noun BUT Verbed

should be incorrect because here the bit after BUT is just verbed with No subject .Waiting for Ashley to Reply .

So the "Noun" and the "Verbed" are certainly not parallel to each other here, but there's no rule that we HAVE to look for the parallel parts to be in the spaces immediately after the NOT and the BUT. Frequently those parts are (or should be) parallel, but as long as you can argue by SOME defense that the sentence preserves parallelism, you're okay. So I could see "She was not a swimmer but went to the pool frequently to sunbathe" or "She did not swim but went to the pool frequently to sunbathe," and either of these would be acceptable. In order for someone to tell you these violated a law of parallelism, that person would have to prove that you couldn't in ANY way claim that these were parallel, and he/she wouldn't be able to prove that. If he/she said "These aren't parallel, because you have a "not NOUN but PAST TENSE VERB in them," you'd just respond that he/she wasn't looking at the right word groupings in the sentence, and that the words could be grouped as "She PAST TENSE VERB PHRASE but PAST TENSE VERB PHRASE" ("She was not a swimmer but went to the pool frequently to sunbathe," where the parts in blue are parallel).

It's really sort of like the associative property in math. Say you had 10*6*3. If you argued that that's 10*18, no one could accuse you of being wrong -- no one could insist that it HAD to be 60*3. Same deal with parallelism -- as long as you can present some way of grouping that preserves parallelism, no one can prove you wrong. It doesn't mean the sentence can't be improved to sound better -- sometimes it can -- and if, on the GMAT or in real life, there's a way to make it sound better, then by all means, go for it. But this flexibility of parallelism does mean we're not required to rule out sentences like the one above.

vikram4689 wrote: Well i think i made the mistake because i did not know the infinitive concept. Am i correct in saying that "was more than like to begin" is in PAST tense but "to begin" is NOT in accordance with past tense. So, though the tense is correct, construction of infinitive is INCORRECT.

Now coming to infinitive, from the post i concluded that,for CORRECT construction, infinitives should be in the same tense (though they do not change the tense as they do not act as verbs & this is the reason i did not focus on them so much). Please correct me ( i am trying to assimilate this concept so that i do not make mistake on this concept).

Hi Vikram,

Technically, you're right that infinitives do not have "tenses" but rather "aspects." But an infinitive can still have any of several aspects -- simple, perfect, continuous, or perfect continuous. For instance, for the verb "write," we'd have simple "to write," perfect "to have written," continuous "to be writing," and perfect continuous "to have been writing." There is no rule that dictates exactly how the aspect of an infinitive should interact with the tense of the verb that precedes it; rather, it should do whatever makes it fit into the timeframe being expressed.

So, I might say "I believe you to be a good person" --> present tense "believe," simple infinitive "to be" --> the belief and the being a good person are comtemporaneous.

Or "I believe him to have been a good person" --> present tense "believe", perfect infinitive "to have been" --> I believe this currently about someone who is no longer alive and therefore no longer being a good person.

Or "I believed him to be a good person" --> past tense "believed," simple infinitive "to be" --> When I was a child, for instance, I believed that my brother was a good person at the time (the same time that I believed it).

Or "I believed him to have been a good person" --> past tense "believed," perfect infinitive "to have been" --> When I was a child, I believed that my already-dead-at-that-time brother had previously been a good person.

Hope that clears it up?

mundasingh123 wrote:Ashley , Excellent explanation . You really clarified a lot of things for me
1 thing
You said

instead, I considered "beginning" to be a present participle constituting part of a modifier ("beginning from a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication"). If we view it in that fashion, THEN we wind up with a sentence fragment, because that modifier never gets a subject after the comma to modify.

But Ashley doesnt "the earliest writing " before was NOT X, But Y and Z get modified by the "beginning " participle .I mean doesnt "the earliest writing " serve as subject for "beginning " participle as well

Not really. The , but really stops the "beginning" from reaching back to modify "the earliest writing." Plus, even if it COULD modify "the earliest writing," since that first clause of the sentence is in past tense ("The earliest writing was not..."), we'd need our participle to be perfect ("having begun"), since the beginning would have to have taken place before the writing was (or was not) anything one way or the other. So if we wanted to construe "beginning" as a participle modifying "the earliest writing," the only way to do so legitimately would be to change both placement and aspect to

"Having begun as a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication, the earliest writing was probably not a direct rendering of speech..."

As (1) the order and (2) "beginning"'s aspect and (3) the ", but" clause separation stand in (C), though, we really can't argue that "beginning" is modifying "the earliest writing" (maybe it's trying to, but it's not succeeding!) --

Ashley@VeritasPrep wrote:

mundasingh123 wrote:Ashley , Excellent explanation . You really clarified a lot of things for me
1 thing
You said

instead, I considered "beginning" to be a present participle constituting part of a modifier ("beginning from a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication"). If we view it in that fashion, THEN we wind up with a sentence fragment, because that modifier never gets a subject after the comma to modify.

But Ashley doesnt "the earliest writing " before was NOT X, But Y and Z get modified by the "beginning " participle .I mean doesnt "the earliest writing " serve as subject for "beginning " participle as well

Not really. The , but really stops the "beginning" from reaching back to modify "the earliest writing." Plus, even if it COULD modify "the earliest writing," since that first clause of the sentence is in past tense ("The earliest writing was not..."), we'd need our participle to be perfect ("having begun"), since the beginning would have to have taken place before the writing was (or was not) anything one way or the other. So if we wanted to construe "beginning" as a participle modifying "the earliest writing," the only way to do so legitimately would be to change both placement and aspect to

"Having begun as a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication, the earliest writing was probably not a direct rendering of speech..."

As (1) the order and (2) "beginning"'s aspect and (3) the ", but" clause separation stand in (C), though, we really can't argue that "beginning" is modifying "the earliest writing" (maybe it's trying to, but it's not succeeding!) --

HI Ashley its very weird that the "was " before "Not X , But Y and Z " can be stretched to act as helping verb for Y .
But the subject "earliest writing " Cant be stretched to act as subject for Y .
:{] You said
"She was not a swimmer but went to the pool frequently to sunbathe,"
is valid . Is it because it doesnt have a comma before the But

snip

Ashley@VeritasPrep wrote:

vikram4689 wrote: Well i think i made the mistake because i did not know the infinitive concept. Am i correct in saying that "was more than like to begin" is in PAST tense but "to begin" is NOT in accordance with past tense. So, though the tense is correct, construction of infinitive is INCORRECT.

Now coming to infinitive, from the post i concluded that,for CORRECT construction, infinitives should be in the same tense (though they do not change the tense as they do not act as verbs & this is the reason i did not focus on them so much). Please correct me ( i am trying to assimilate this concept so that i do not make mistake on this concept).

Hi Vikram,

Technically, you're right that infinitives do not have "tenses" but rather "aspects." But an infinitive can still have any of several aspects -- simple, perfect, continuous, or perfect continuous. For instance, for the verb "write," we'd have simple "to write," perfect "to have written," continuous "to be writing," and perfect continuous "to have been writing." There is no rule that dictates exactly how the aspect of an infinitive should interact with the tense of the verb that precedes it; rather, it should do whatever makes it fit into the timeframe being expressed.

So, I might say "I believe you to be a good person" --> present tense "believe," simple infinitive "to be" --> the belief and the being a good person are comtemporaneous.

Or "I believe him to have been a good person" --> present tense "believe", perfect infinitive "to have been" --> I believe this currently about someone who is no longer alive and therefore no longer being a good person.

Or "I believed him to be a good person" --> past tense "believed," simple infinitive "to be" --> When I was a child, for instance, I believed that my brother was a good person at the time (the same time that I believed it).

Or "I believed him to have been a good person" --> past tense "believed," perfect infinitive "to have been" --> When I was a child, I believed that my already-dead-at-that-time brother had previously been a good person.

Hope that clears it up?

Thanks Ashley, Now i will apply this to our sentence, please correct if i am wrong.
I am in present and talking about something in past. AND more importantly the "something" i am talking about has already begun (this comes from meaning of sentence as subject is of ancient times and person talking would not had been born at that time (did i use correct tense "had been born" ). So i will use perfect infinitive.

Now lets consider another sentence,
The company was not a non-profit but more likely to (begin/have begun) as a for-profit company.
In this case i am standing in present and talking about something in past BUT i do not know if company has already started or not

mundasingh123 wrote: HI Ashley its very weird that the "was " before "Not X , But Y and Z " can be stretched to act as helping verb for Y .
But the subject "earliest writing " Cant be stretched to act as subject for Y .
:{] You said
"She was not a swimmer but went to the pool frequently to sunbathe,"
is valid . Is it because it doesnt have a comma before the But

Hi,

See diagrams for comparison. The first image shows two sentences that do work. The second shows one that doesn't. Hope these help.

Note: The sentences in these diagrams ideally should not have commas, but I'll throw commas in just to make these more similar to the "earliest writing" sentence, because the comma is not really an important point one way or the other. In the diagrams, I am just going to use a minus (-) for the statements that aren't true (i.e. the "not"s) and a plus (+) for the ones that are.