Not until the Enlightenment, some 200 years ago, had society seriously

According to my "lame" SC analysis:
"State" should be noun because "it" can refer only to state and this cant happen while we keep "right of the state"

Imo
Ans E

Not until the Enlightenment, some 200 years ago, had society seriously questioned the right of the state that it could execute its citizens.


(A) had society seriously questioned the right of the state that it could execute--> timeline is provided, so use of past participle is unnecessary

(B) did society seriously questioned the right of the state that it could execute --> "did questioned" is wrong: "did question" <=> "questioned"

(C) had society seriously questioned the right of the state for the executing of--> same as A

(D) did society seriously question the right of the state to execute --> correct

(E) had society seriously questioned whether the state had a right that it could execute--> same as A

this is inversion grammar............... because of negative idiom.... Not until X...did Y
"had" in this case do not have pair action and incorrect....... obviously D correct
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Hi folks,

Below is how I read the original sentence. Bold things are trigger points.
Not until the Enlightenment, some 200 years ago, had society seriously questioned the right of the state that it could execute its citizens.
Sentence begins with a modifier and it should trigger one to find the entity its modifying.
"Not until the enlightenment"...ok, but whose enlightenment? Whatever follows, must be the subject of the sentence.
Had society....Ok. So its society. Makes sense. "seriously questioned the right of the state that IT could..." What does IT refer to? Society? State?
we have got a pronoun ambiguity here.

Lets choose the best among five.

Incorrect for the reasons stated above.


Use of "Did" demands first form of verb. Second, pronoun ambiguity still exists.


Wrong preposition. For means, society is doing something for where as here its something doe to someone.


Correct usage of did and first form of verb. No pronoun ambiguity.


Too long sentence. I could not find any grammatical error though.

I find D & E both grammatical correct. D is just better than E.
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hi folks,

just wondering, if there is no "some 200 years ago", should we keep the (did) or (had)?

Hello blablabla1997,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, no; the removal of this phrase will not affect the tense of the sentence; "did" remains the correct verb.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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