OG12 diagnostic Q39

[irock]

According to scholars, the earliest writing was probably not a direct rendering of speech, but was more likely to begin as a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication, and only later merged with spoken language.

(A) was more likely to begin as
(B) more than likely began as
(C) more than likely beginning from
(D) it was more than likely begun from
(E) it was more likely that it began

IMO B

[Ashley@VeritasPrep]

Agreed. That's the only answer choice that preserves parallelism without introducing tense errors or rendering a fragment!

[cans]

'more than' is idiom and thus A & E are directly rejected.
c) is incorrect because of use of 'beginning from'
d) begun is incorrect use
IMO B

[Shifa@CrackVerbal]

According to scholars, the earliest writing was probably not a direct rendering of speech, but was more likely to begin as a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication, and only later merged with spoken language.

(A) was more likely to begin as
(B) more than likely began as
(C) more than likely beginning from
(D) it was more than likely begun from
(E) it was more likely that it began

IMO B

A can be eliminated due to incorrect tense.
C can be eliminated due to incorrect tense.
D can be eliminated due to change in meaning.
E can be eliminated due to change in meaning.

IMO, B

[irock]

thanks everyone.

[aftableo2006]

B IS THE RIGHT ANSWER.does not have any errors of parallelism or tense

[itsmebharat]

IMO B

[mundasingh123]

Agreed. That's the only answer choice that preserves parallelism without introducing tense errors or rendering a fragment!

Hi Ashley Could You You please explain how did You arrive at the OA ?
Even A preserves Parallelism

[vikram4689]

YEs ashley please explain how parallism is present in B but violated in all other options.


Also i think that an independent clause should follow after "but" but subject is missing.

[Ashley@VeritasPrep]

Agreed. That's the only answer choice that preserves parallelism without introducing tense errors or rendering a fragment!

Hi Ashley Could You You please explain how did You arrive at the OA ?
Even A preserves Parallelism

YEs ashley please explain how parallism is present in B but violated in all other options.

Hi guys,

Thanks for the questions. As the two of you mention, B is not the only answer choice that preserves parallelism, but it IS the only answer choice that preserves parallelism *without* introducing tense errors or rendering a fragment.

We've got:

According to scholars, the earliest writing was probably not a direct rendering of speech, but was more likely to begin as a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication, and only later merged with spoken language.

(A) was more likely to begin as --> preserves parallelism but introduces a tense error, since in reality, the earliest writing *has already* begun
(B) more than likely began as --> Nicely parallel (and lacking tense errors or fragmentation). In this setup, our subject "the earliest writing" (1) was not a direct rendering; (2) began as a separate system; and (3) merged with spoken language. Those three past-tense verbs (was, began, and merged) are parallel with each other.
(C) more than likely beginning from --> "beginning from" renders the entire (non-)sentence a fragment
(D) it was more than likely begun from --> inserting the extra "it" here means we're setting the sentence up to require a subject before each verb (since we've got "the earliest writing was not..." and "it was..."), but then we don't get a subject before "only later merged," so we've broken the pattern. (Additionally, the passive voice of "was begun from" is awkward, and the "it" is arguably ambiguous (not in meaning, but strictly grammatically) in terms of whether it refers to "writing" or "speech.")
(E) it was more likely that it began --> again, we wind up with an awkward situation in terms of patterning or parallelism, because "the earliest writing was not" gives us "Subject Verb," and then "it was likely that it began" given us "DifferentSubject Verb that Subject Verb," and finally "later merged" gives us simply "Verb." What we really want is something like "Subject Verb," "Subject Verb," "Subject Verb" -- or alternatively, as we get in (B), just a subject that umbrellas over "Verb," "Verb" "Verb."

As to Vikram's

Also i think that an independent clause should follow after "but" but subject is missing.

you're right that normally when we put a comma before "but," we should follow up with a new independent clause! (For example, I could write "She likes to swim, but she doesn't like to run" or "She likes to swim but doesn't like to run," but I SHOULDN'T write "She likes to swim, but doesn't like to run." The sentence above, however, since it has so many parts, arguably becomes long and difficult to comprehend without the commas separating its chunks, so their presence heightens the clarity. You could, however, also write the sentence with no commas except for the initial one after "scholars."

[vikram4689]

Thanks a lot Ashley. I have one doubt regarding option A. Isn't "was more likely to begin as" in past tense. If yes then all the verbs are in past tense.(grammatically ||)

For logically ||, i will dig into the meaning. As "was probably not a direct rendering of speech" suggests that earliest was not a direct rendering, "was more likely to begin" suggests that earliest writing was not likely to begin as symbolic system of communication.

Please point out the mistake w.r.t. grammatical and logical ||.

[mundasingh123]

Thanks Ashley for coming to our rescue

(C) more than likely beginning from --> "beginning from" renders the entire (non-)sentence a fragment

According to scholars, the earliest writing was probably not a direct rendering of speech, but was more likely to begin as a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication, and only later merged with spoken language.
(C) more than likely beginning from
The sentence has the structure
Was Not X , But Y and Z
I came across a number of SCs on Parallelism in which i read that the X , Y , and Z should be Parallel ie X,Y and Z should all have prepositions if 1 of them has a preposition .The same with verbs,adjectives etc.
So Here in this sentence , we have " was " is before Not X But Y , and Z
You said

(C) more than likely beginning from --> "beginning from" renders the entire (non-)sentence a fragment

Doesnt the was before Not X But Y , and Z serve as a helping verb for all X, Y and Z .
In C , Y has beginning and there is was before "Not X But Y and Z "
So how can C turn the sentence into a fragment ?
Ashley could you please help me understand this Subtlety in structure

[mundasingh123]

Ashley ,
What i am basically asking is
Isnt
The movie was NOT a total flop BUT gained a cult following after its release .
This is exactly what A says
Is the above sentence correct ?
was Not noun but verbed


What about the following sentence

The movie was NOT a total failure BUT climbing up the popularity charts after the second week .
Doesnt the was before NOT serve as helping verb for "climbing "
Plesae Help

[Ashley@VeritasPrep]

Thanks a lot Ashley. I have one doubt regarding option A. Isn't "was more likely to begin as" in past tense. If yes then all the verbs are in past tense.(grammatically ||)

For logically ||, i will dig into the meaning. As "was probably not a direct rendering of speech" suggests that earliest was not a direct rendering, "was more likely to begin" suggests that earliest writing was not likely to begin as symbolic system of communication.

Please point out the mistake w.r.t. grammatical and logical ||.

Hi Vikram,

Thanks for asking this, because I didn't really make it clear in my last post. The tense error introduced by saying "was more likely to begin" in not in the "was" part -- you're right, that's still past tense -- but rather in the "to begin." Since "writing" (our subject) HAS ALREADY begun, I can't use an infinitive that gives no indication of that fact. I could say "to have begun" -- that would be fine -- because that would be a perfect tense infinitive, and the perfect would do the work of situating this beginning in the past. But I can't use just a regular, non-perfect infinitive.

You could only use a regular (non-perfect) infinitive with a past tense verb preceding it if the action in the infinitive were still were contemporaneous with or in the future of the time of the sentence. For instance, I could say

"Tom was likely to be out in his field" if he either was or wasn't out in his field at the time that it was likely that he was there.

or "The race was likely to begin at 10 AM sharp" if I were forecasting -- *sometime prior to 10 AM * -- this prompt beginning.

But I couldn't say, speaking from any point after the race had started, that "the race was likely to begin at 10AM." If I were flashing back to what I had thought earlier that morning, I could potentially get away with phrasing it like that, but generally at any point after the start of the race, I'd be locked into saying either, "The race was likely to have begun at 10 AM, but it didn't" -- or "The race likely began at 10AM," if I weren't absolutely sure whether or not it had actually begun then.

[Ashley@VeritasPrep]

Thanks Ashley for coming to our rescue

(C) more than likely beginning from --> "beginning from" renders the entire (non-)sentence a fragment

According to scholars, the earliest writing was probably not a direct rendering of speech, but was more likely to begin as a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication, and only later merged with spoken language.
(C) more than likely beginning from
The sentence has the structure
Was Not X , But Y and Z
I came across a number of SCs on Parallelism in which i read that the X , Y , and Z should be Parallel ie X,Y and Z should all have prepositions if 1 of them has a preposition .The same with verbs,adjectives etc.
So Here in this sentence , we have " was " is before Not X But Y , and Z
You said

(C) more than likely beginning from --> "beginning from" renders the entire (non-)sentence a fragment

Doesnt the was before Not X But Y , and Z serve as a helping verb for all X, Y and Z .
In C , Y has beginning and there is was before "Not X But Y and Z "
So how can C turn the sentence into a fragment ?
Ashley could you please help me understand this Subtlety in structure

Ah, I think I understand your question (I hope!). You're totally right that we're free to extend the "was" over all the parts X, Y, and Z when looking for parallelism. (The rules of parallelism are pretty flexible in general, and basically if there's *any* way you can argue that the sentence is parallel, it is -- so extending a "was" to help all the parts is certainly within the realm of reasonable!) But let's look at what happens if we extend the "was" in this sentence and plug in option (C) (I'm cutting out some modifiers that are not essential to the grammar, just to pare the sentence down some). The sentence then can basically be chopped into three short implied sentences:

Writing was (1) not a rendering of speech. -and-
Writing was (2) likely beginning from a separate system. -and-
Writing was (3) later merged with spoken language.

(1) is obviously fine. (3) is okay, too -- I'd slightly prefer not to have a "was" before only later merged, because it sacrifices an active voice construction ("writing later merged") for a passive voice one ("writing was later merged"), but passive voice isn't a deal-breaker, so that's okay.

(2), though, is problematic. If I say "writing was likely beginning," I'm using the past progressive (or past continuous, whichever you prefer to call it -- those terms are interchangeable), and the past continuous -- like all the continuous tenses -- suggests something with duration, something that was (or is, or will be, in the cases of present continuous and future continuous respectively) an ongoing process over some time period. But the verb "begin" kind of resists that idea, since by definition, to begin is to start, and once you've started, you're no longer in the process of starting*. So we really can't say "language was beginning as a separate and distinct symbolic system" -- rather, it just BEGAN as that system (simple past tense).

So, if you consider the sentence in that fashion, you're right, you don't get a fragment, but you get an error in tense (a past progressive where past progressive doesn't work). I guess I didn't consider the sentence in that fashion (maybe because I automatically resisted creating a past progressive verb) -- instead, I considered "beginning" to be a present participle constituting part of a modifier ("beginning from a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication"). If we view it in that fashion, THEN we wind up with a sentence fragment, because that modifier never gets a subject after the comma to modify.