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Is it summative modifier? what is the Ellipses in OA ?

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Is it summative modifier? what is the Ellipses in OA ?

by aflaam » Mon Apr 18, 2016 3:22 am
Soaring television costs accounted for more than half the spending in the presidential campaign of 1992, a greater proportion than it was in any previous election.

A. a greater proportion than it was
B. a greater proportion than
C. a greater proportion than they have been
D. which is greater than was so
E. which is greater than it has been
OA is B
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Hello Experts,
My questions are
1) is OA uses summative modifier?
IF yes, then shouldn't it be
,a proportion greater than blah blah

2) What is the ellipses in OA?
is it proportion?
Thanks in anticipation Experts
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by fabiocafarelli » Tue Apr 19, 2016 2:13 am
1. Yes, in the correct answer (option B) the phrase a greater proportion than in any previous election is a summative modifier. It sums up and describes the previous information about the television costs and what they accounted for: more than half the spending.

2. It could be argued that there is an ellipsis in option B, but my own sense of it is that there is not one. A summative modifier acts adjectivally or adverbially to describe the information before it: thus, a greater proportion than in any previous election is a complete and sufficient descriptive summation of more than half the spending. If you wanted to force a kind of greater specificity into this modifier, you could say, I suppose, that the words of the spending (before THAN) and the proportion (after THAN) represent an ellipsis because they could be inserted into the sentence.
Nevertheless, I don't really see the point of worrying about this matter: the thing you need to see is that option B has no errors of grammar, idiom, or diction, and above all that it makes sense just as it is written.

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Last edited by fabiocafarelli on Tue Apr 19, 2016 8:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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