deciphering Sentence structure from a famous book

Question

The below sentence i read in a famous book on philosophy.

Can you please help in breaking the subject verb pairs.

To the west, across the Ionian, Italy stands, like a leaning tower in the sea, and  Siciliy and Spain , each in those days with thriving Greek colonies; and at the end, the "Pillars of Hercules", that sombre portal through which not many an ancient mariner dared to pass.

There seems no verb for Siciliy and Spain, and no verb for "Pillars of Hercules"?

shanks2020 · Answer

AndrewN   egmat

AndrewN · Answer

That is correct,  shanks2020 . There is no separate verb for the latter two components in this list of sorts. That is, all three components piggyback off of the initial description that  to the west, across the Ionian, ________ stands . The blank is filled in first by Italy, then by Sicily and Spain, and finally by the "Pillars of Hercules," with an appropriate (understood) alteration of  stands  to  stand .

Been reading a lot about Plato lately? It makes sense that a Greek would be looking westward to spot these places, and the sentence carries us gradually from the nearest to the farthest image (in quite a poetic way, I might add).

Thank you for sharing, and also for thinking to ask me about the sentence.

- Andrew

shanks2020 · Answer

Thanks  AndrewN  for your quick response.
Do you think such a structure can be correct in GMAT SC?

AndrewN · Answer

No problem,  shanks2020 . I enjoy examining sentences. To answer your question, I doubt that this exact sentence would appear as a GMAT™ SC question, since there is a little more flexibility with subject-verb agreement than I would expect to see, not to mention mixed punctuation in a list (either commas or semicolons would be used to separate each item). However, I think the sentence could easily be altered to create a full-fledged SC question, one that tested parallelism or comparisons, among other elements.

- Andrew

shanks2020 · Answer

AndrewN

Got it. Even i was thinking, per the rules of GMAT SC, such a sentence would be deemed incorrect.

However, since you mentioned punctuations, there is a query though i have no example now.
How to decipher what is correct, if a sentence has both hyphen(-) and a comma. What roles can they play in a sentence, if they appear together or can they grammatically appear together?

AndrewN · Answer

I think you may mean the em dash, —, what appears to be a longer-than-usual hyphen. It is typically used in parallel in place of double commas (i.e. interchangeably, but  not  mixed and matched), but it can also be used in place of a colon, making it one of the most versatile punctuation marks. All of the following sentences are grammatically fine:

1) The card—protected by a rigid case that was hermetically sealed—proved to be a forgery.
2) The card, protected by a rigid case that was hermetically sealed, proved to be a forgery.
3) The card is the holy grail of the hobby, priced as high as a two-bedroom house—around $200,000. (Note that a comma or colon could work here as well, in place of the em dash.)

I hope that helps. If you have further questions, feel free to ask.

- Andrew

shanks2020 · Answer

Hi  AndrewN

Got this one from an official CR question, and seeing believe seeing a similar one on SC in an official exam. How is the use of dash and comma here? i thought that there should be another dash(-)before have proved.
" Fears, initially widespread in the general public, that genetic engineering of new biological products would produce an ecological disaster- some uncontrollable new organism have proved unfounded."

AndrewN · Answer

Hello again,  shanks2020 . I suspect a transcription error, since there should be a second dash between  organism  and  have  to separate the interrupting phrase  some uncontrollable new organism  from the rest of the main clause. Without the second dash, we get a nonsensical sentence when the main clause is simply

Fears have proved unfounded.

Compare to

Fears some uncontrollable new organism have proved unfounded.

A Google search of the question led me to another site that showed the same punctuation as above, but I would like to see a screenshot from GMAT Prep that shows the same.

- Andrew

deciphering Sentence structure from a famous book

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