Does OA make a run on sentence?

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Goal760: Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts; Posts: 12; Joined: Thu Dec 01, 2011 8:23 pm

by Goal760 » Tue Jan 03, 2012 5:32 am

Few hotels in Indonesia offer dishes made with the meat of zebra not normally served in hotels in other parts of the world.

A). dishes made with the meat of zebra not normally served
B). dishes made with the meat, not normally served, of zebra
C). dishes, being made with the meat of zebra, not normally served
D). dishes made with the meat of zebra, dishes not normally served
E). dishes of the meat of zebra which are not normally served

OA [spoiler](D)[/spoiler]
I know OA is better than the rest, but doesn't it make a run on sentence?.
Clauses before and after the comma are both independent clauses; therefore shouldn't
there be a semi colon instead of comma or we should put a coordinating conjunction after the
comma, or make one of the clauses as dependent?

Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Tue Jan 03, 2012 5:32 am

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Mike@Magoosh: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 768; Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2011 4:18 pmFollowed by: 140 members; Location: Berkeley, CA; Thanked: 387 times

by Mike@Magoosh » Tue Jan 03, 2012 11:19 am

Hi there! I'm happy to help with this.

You are asking an excellent question. What's going on here is a grammatical subtlety called an "absolute phrase." An absolute phrase sometimes looks like an independent clause, but whereas an independent clause has NOUN + VERB, an absolute phrase has NOUN + PARTICIPLE. Like any other dependent clause, an absolute phrase qualifies or modifies some aspect of the independent clause.

One of the most commonly used absolute phrases: "All things being equal,..." That's not a stand-alone independent clause. To make it independent, we would have to change the participle "being" to a present tense verb "All things are equal."

In the OA answer you cite, the phrase: "dishes not normally served in hotels in other parts of the world" is an absolute phrase. By itself, unchanged, it cannot serve as a stand-on-its-own independent clause. We would have to change the participle to a verb: "[These] dishes are not normally served in hotels in other parts of the world."

The second clause, after the comma is an absolute phrase, a relative clause. Therefore, the only independent clause is the the first half of the sentence. Therefore, the OA sentence is not a run-on sentence.

Does that make sense? Let me know if you have any questions about what I've said.

Mike

Magoosh GMAT Instructor
https://gmat.magoosh.com/

Goal760: Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts; Posts: 12; Joined: Thu Dec 01, 2011 8:23 pm

by Goal760 » Tue Jan 03, 2012 7:39 pm

Thanks Mike, that indeed was the explanation i was looking for. I am clear now ..

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