mukherjeeabhish wrote:
Because of the multiplier effect inherent in any unlimited-transaction economy, the spending of one dollar typically generates several times the gross income in such an economy than in a single- or limited-transaction economy.
(D) in such an economy typically generates several times as much gross income as the spending of one dollar would.
I understand by POE ,(D) is the answer. However , I want some help about the use of ellipsis in would . 2nd part will be - the spending of one dollar would 'generate' . But there is no generate in the whole sentence . The sentence uses generates in the 1st part. Is this usage correct ?
Hello!
It seems as though there are two questions in the posts above about the
would in this sentence: why is this tense/mood used, and how can it be an elided form of
would generate if the exact word
generate is never used?
I'll answer the second question first:
generates is as much a form of
generate as
would generate is. When elided verb forms refer to verbs used earlier in the sentence, they tend to refer to the same infinitive, not necessarily to the exact usage of that verb earlier.
Generates is the third-person singular present indicative (ouch) conjugation of
to generate, and the present tense, third person, and indicative mood are all appropriate for that particular usage of
to generate in its context. Similarly,
would generate is the appropriate form in
its context. Consider this simpler example:
She said that she loved accounting and would for the rest of her days.This leads us back to the first question: why is
would generate appropriate in this context? Grammatically,
would has two major duties in English: it functions as a sort of future tense from the point of view of the past, and it functions as a marker of the conditional mood. In the short example I gave at the end of the first paragraph, it's used in the former sense. It is a past-tense sentence, but one could easily imagine that at the time the subject of the sentence was speaking, she actually said, "I love accounting and will for the rest of my days." When I relate what she said in the past tense, though,
love changes to
loved and
will changes to
would to reflect that everything I'm describing happened in the past.
Answer D in this particular question is an instance of the other use of
would: the conditional mood. Usually, the conditional mood shows up in the "then" part of if/then constructions when the "if" part contains a hypothetical or contrary-to-fact condition. Despite the absence of an if/then construction in this sentence, that hypothetical mood is the mood that
would is intended to convey here. By using
would, the author of the sentence is essentially implying that if the
same dollar that in the world of the sentence has already been spent in an unlimited-transaction economy were
instead spent in a single- or limited-transaction economy, it would generate less gross income.
The conditional is
complicated.
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Ryan Starr
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