Could give us the link to the question. Maybe we could explain clearly once we look at the question. Since the question has been widely discussed, u dont have to post the question once again. u can just give us the link here, so that we could refer which question you are talking about and provide our help!

Cinji18 wrote:I got one of the SC questions in the OG wrong, and wasn't satisfied with the explanation it gives. There are quite a few threads here about that problem, and I read through the explanations there, but now, I'm confused about it fundamentally.

My confusion has to do with parallel participles. The correct answer for the problem has a past participle parallel with a present participle. However, although they are both participles, how is the past parallel with the present? Don't both have to be either past participles or present participles? I couldn't convince myself that the official answer is the correct answer because it has a past participle parallel with a present participle.

Its case of whether you are having transitive verbs or instransitive verbs . If its intransitive verbs than you got to use present participle as instransiive verbs dont have past participle. They have past verb tense but its not a participle.

Participle is sth which acts like an adjective , so past participle and present participle are fine to related as parallel as they are not in 'verb tense form' . If you use those verbs as actual verbs and not as participle then yes tense should be same. But if they ae acting as participle then its ok .

fibbonnaci,

I was trying to get an answer that's more general rather than question based. I didn't want to get something like, "Well, for this question, it's this," but more like, "usually..." or "generally..." So, I didn't provide the question, but the question is discussed here:

https://www.beatthegmat.com/most-brutal-sc-19-t9879.html

rohan,

Huh! Ok. Never knew that. I always thought that for things to be parallel, they all have to end in ~ed, ~ing, adjective clauses, etc. I guess you're saying tense doesn't matter for participles.

Thanks.

Hey Cinji, i understand why you posted a general statement. But the reason i asked you to post is that such parallelism[ past participle and present participle] occur rarely and the reason they are right is because of some inherent feature in the sentence. I can say exceptions occur because of some quality in the sentence that needs to be addressed by maintaining this exception.

For eg. in the sentence that you described, without the word 'living organism' the use of participle 'extending' would be considered wrong.[since it does not parallel the past participle 'spawned'] But the word ' living organism' brings this difference. Because the organism is still living, it would be gramatically wrong to say 'extended'. we need to use present participle in that case.

So you see, grammar is never without exceptions. These exceptions are required to maintain the integrity of the sentence. If there is some exception, there wouldnt be a general rule, but a specific case to case basis rule.

Hope this helps!

fibbonnaci,

Thanks for the explanation. I guess that's an exception I need to drill on.

Cinji