Parallelism and Prepositions, Please Help!!!

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Parallelism and Prepositions, Please Help!!!

by alexcey » Sat May 19, 2012 12:46 am
In order to maintain parallelism, when is it required to repeat prepositions? For example, in the pattern sentence "in A and B", is it ever required to say "in A and in B"? Or "by A and by B"?

For example,

"I'm interested in chemistry, which I like very much, and philosophy, which I don't know much about"

Do I need to use "in philosophy" for clarity? Same question applies to prepositions by and with.

I got confused after looking at this question from GMACPrep1:

"Reptiles, by drawing their body heat directly from the Sun rather than burning calories to generate it, can survive on ten percent of the nourishment that a mammal of similar size would normally require"

This sentence is correct, according to GMAC. I don't quite understand why there is no need to say "rather than by burning ..."

What confuses me more is that the preposition to is optional in a list of infinitives. For example, to A, B, and C or to A, to B, and to C.
Source: — Sentence Correction |

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by avik.ch » Sat May 19, 2012 1:03 am
In order to maintain parallelism, when is it required to repeat prepositions? For example, in the pattern sentence "in A and B", is it ever required to say "in A and in B"? Or "by A and by B"?
This is dependent on the structure.

The animal lives in grass and sleeps in trees. - here you have to repeat the preposition as there are two different verb.

The animal lives in grass and in trees.
The animal lives in grass and trees.

here both are correct.
"I'm interested in chemistry, which I like very much, and philosophy, which I don't know much about"
yes, this is correct.

"Reptiles, by drawing their body heat directly from the Sun rather than by burning calories to generate it, can survive on ten percent of the nourishment that a mammal of similar size would normally require"

As above mentioned, the preposition can be omitted.
What confuses me more is that the preposition to is optional in a list of infinitives. For example, to A, B, and C or to A, to B, and to C.
incase for an list infinitive, you can delete the "to".

Hope this helps !!

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by alexcey » Sat May 19, 2012 8:38 am
Thanks, avik.ch. You response was very helpful.

I have run into another example from GMACPack1 today:

"In the English-speaking world Anton Chekhov is far better known for his plays than for his short stories ...."

This was the correct answer. The construction is "better known for A than for B". Is this considered parallel - "better known for than B"? In other words, "Chekhov is far better known for his plays than his short stories"

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