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More..Than (Preposition and Parallelism) Ambiguity

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by raj44 » Sat May 24, 2014 10:26 pm
Good day people,

The parallelism marker (or idiom) MORE....THAN when used with prepositions such as ON results in some confusion:

For example, 1. ".."MORE emphasis ONstyle THAN ON the content...." works

or
2. ".."MORE emphasis ONstyle THAN the content...." is right?

Notice that ON is omitted from phrase 2.

Please clarify the concept behind this - or both forms are acceptable from GMAT pov?

Thanks,
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by [email protected] » Sun May 25, 2014 12:13 am
Hi raj44,

"Context" is especially important in these sorts of situations. Do you have an actual GMAT SC that you'd like to review?

Based on your second example, I'd expect the sentence to state "MORE emphasis ON style THAN ON content..."

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by kinji@BTG » Sun May 25, 2014 12:15 am
raj44 wrote:Good day people,

The parallelism marker (or idiom) MORE....THAN when used with prepositions such as ON results in some confusion:

For example, 1. ".."MORE emphasis ONstyle THAN ON the content...." works

or
2. ".."MORE emphasis ONstyle THAN the content...." is right?

Notice that ON is omitted from phrase 2.

Please clarify the concept behind this - or both forms are acceptable from GMAT pov?

Thanks,
The concept is called ellipsis.

The words can be ellipsed if there is no ambiguity in the meaning.

For example : Tom likes to eat hamburger than to eat hot dog
-> to eat can be ellipsed and the following sentence is correct
Tom likes to eat hamburger than hot dog

But in some cases, you need to repeat the words to avoid ambiguity.

For example:
Tom has more love for his money than his wife.

Here the comparison can be
Tom has more love for his money than his wife does.
Comparing Tom love for money and his wife's love for money.

Or the comparison can be
Tom love his money more than he loves his wife.

So there can be an ambiguity so we need to understand the intended meaning and take a decision whether to ellipsis or not.
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by AnjaliOberoi » Sun May 25, 2014 12:17 am
I think the correct idiom is MORE X THAN Y
so phrase 2 is wrong because X and Y need to parallel
on Style is not parallel with content
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by raj44 » Sun May 25, 2014 2:05 am
[email protected] wrote:Hi raj44,

"Context" is especially important in these sorts of situations. Do you have an actual GMAT SC that you'd like to review?

Based on your second example, I'd expect the sentence to state "MORE emphasis ON style THAN ON content..."

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Hi Rich,

Well I was practicing AWA when I come across this doubt(therefore no sample SC prob); more...than.. I think that ON has to be repeated here (since style and content are diff ) and it also maintains the parallelism.

But then there are exceptions :D like the usage of THAN in comparison questions...as kinji meentioned..ellipsis..So whats the final take away then :)
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by e-GMAT » Tue May 27, 2014 3:29 pm
Hi raj44,

Ellipsis can be used in a sentence to an extent where the intended meaning of the sentence is not changed. The sentence should not convey ambiguous meaning because of ellipsis. Let's take a simple example to understand how ellipsis can result in ambiguity in meaning:

"¢ Tom puts more trust in the technology than his friends.

This sentence conveys two meanings:

1. Tom trusts the technology. Tom trusts his friends. But he trusts technology more than his friends.
2. Tom trusts the technology. His friends trust technology. But between Tom and his friends he trusts the technology more.

This sentence is ambiguous since both 'friends' and 'the technology' are comparable. Tom can put his trust in both these entities.

The reason for the ambiguity in the above sentence is ellipsis. Since there are two possible meanings of the above sentence, let's try to recover the original sentence (without any ellipsis):

1. Tom puts more trust in the technology than in his friends. (Preposition)

2. Tom puts more trust in the technology than do his friends. (Verb)

Now, both these sentences convey the intended meaning.

TAKE AWAYS

1. Choose the answer choice that conveys intended unambiguous comparison.

2. When the sentence conveys ambiguous comparison, repeat either the preposition or the helping verb to convey the intended meaning.

To learn more about this concept, please refer to Ellipses in Comparison.

Hope this helps!

Regards,
Deepak
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by raj44 » Thu May 29, 2014 7:32 am
Good Day Deepak,

Thanks a lot for the succinct explanation. My concepts are now clear regarding ellipsis.

Regards,
Rajeev

e-GMAT wrote:Hi raj44,

Ellipsis can be used in a sentence to an extent where the intended meaning of the sentence is not changed. The sentence should not convey ambiguous meaning because of ellipsis. Let's take a simple example to understand how ellipsis can result in ambiguity in meaning:

"¢ Tom puts more trust in the technology than his friends.

This sentence conveys two meanings:

1. Tom trusts the technology. Tom trusts his friends. But he trusts technology more than his friends.
2. Tom trusts the technology. His friends trust technology. But between Tom and his friends he trusts the technology more.

This sentence is ambiguous since both 'friends' and 'the technology' are comparable. Tom can put his trust in both these entities.

The reason for the ambiguity in the above sentence is ellipsis. Since there are two possible meanings of the above sentence, let's try to recover the original sentence (without any ellipsis):

1. Tom puts more trust in the technology than in his friends. (Preposition)

2. Tom puts more trust in the technology than do his friends. (Verb)

Now, both these sentences convey the intended meaning.

TAKE AWAYS

1. Choose the answer choice that conveys intended unambiguous comparison.

2. When the sentence conveys ambiguous comparison, repeat either the preposition or the helping verb to convey the intended meaning.

To learn more about this concept, please refer to Ellipses in Comparison.

Hope this helps!

Regards,
Deepak
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