Debayandc wrote:
"Scientists have recently discovered what could be the largest and oldest living organism on Earth, a giant fungus that is an interwoven filigree of mushrooms and root-like tentacles spawned by a single fertilized spore some 10,000 years ago and extending for more than 30 acres in the soil of a Michigan forest."
Can I compare "a giant fungus that is an....and is extending..." ?? Experts, please guide.
Hello,
Debayandc. I see what you are getting at, and I admit that I was initially considering an option, before I had looked at the answers, that would have a parallel to
that is. The problem, as others have pointed out above, is that the two elements would not be parallel:
an interwoven filigree is a noun, while
is extending is a verb. In the correct sentence, it is clear that
spawned by and
extending are the parallel elements instead:
Scientists have recently discovered what could be the largest and oldest living organism on Earth, a giant fungus that is an interwoven filigree of mushrooms and rootlike tentacles spawned by a single fertilized spore some 10,000 years ago and extending for more than 30 acres in the soil of a Michigan forest.To make a sentence that
did create a parallel element to
a giant fungus that is, in which
is is the verb of
that, we would need a second instance of
that to avoid any confusion, and the verb would have to be conjugated differently, as in the following sentence:
Scientists have recently discovered what could be the largest and oldest living organism on Earth, a giant fungus that is an interwoven filigree of mushrooms and rootlike tentacles spawned by a single fertilized spore some 10,000 years ago and that extends for more than 30 acres in the soil of a Michigan forest.Now we are saying that a giant fungus is [something] and extends for more than 30 acres. It might seem intuitive to use the form
is extending, but again, because the earlier use of
is is followed by a noun, we would expect a noun instead of a verb to follow the second
is. You will note that among the answer choices on offer, there are none that correspond to our above sentence, thereby eliminating such an interpretation on grammatical grounds.
I hope that helps. If you have further questions, feel free to ask.
- Andrew
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