In MGMAT, Chap 4, it mentioned that two sides of a linking

I'm confused about the same thing. MGMAT says that linking verbs are parallelism markers. According to the guide,
this is right: The bouquet of flowers was a gift of love
this is wrong: The bouquet of flowers was a giving of love
because bouquet is a plain noun, so gift (which is also a plain noun) is right and giving (which is gerund) is wrong

Following that logic, isn't the OP's sentence 'The boy is cute' wrong? Isn't 'Amy was cleaning the house' wrong? Are they really wrong or is there some other explanation? Please help!

Your analogy is not correct:

You need to maintain parallelism ONLY when a parallel structure exists. None of your examples requires a parallel structure.


"Cute" is an adjective. "He is good", "She is beautiful", "The boy is cute" are all correct sentences. There is no parallel structure in these sentences. You need to seek for parallelism ONLY when there is a requirement of two nouns on two sides of a linking verb.

The other example is even more away from analogy: "Amy was cleaning the room" - there is no linking verb at all. The verb in this sentence is "was cleaning" - no question of parallelism arise.

(Referring to the Manhattan example, please note that gerund is a verbal, which works as a noun - for maintaining parallelism, a noun is preferred with another noun rather than a gerund.)

I agree, the second example was out of place but I'm still not clear about the justification for the first one going by MGMAT's logic.
MGMAT says that linking verb is a parallelism marker. So, doesn't that mean that wherever there is a linking verb, there have to parallel structures?
If yes, then how do we justify:The bouquet of flowers [noun] was beautiful [adjective] - going by their other example where they say 'The bouquet of flowers was a giving of love' is wrong?

Why is it that the first one (The bouquet of flowers was beautiful) doesn't seek parallelism but the second one (The bouquet of flowers was a giving of love) does?

You said, "You need to seek for parallelism ONLY when there is a requirement of two nouns on two sides of a linking verb," so I guess my question is, how do we know that there is a requirement of two nouns on two sides of a linking verb? Because, as per MGMAT's logic, if there is a linking verb, there is a requirement of parallelism.

A linking verb as far as it means, just links the subject with the rest of the clause. It doesn't do any thing more. I am not clear about what MGMAT wants to convey if we understand their perspective right.

I'm sorry, I missed a point by MGMAT - "The subject, bouquet, and the object, gift, have to be parallel."
So, I guess what they meant was that if there is a linking verb which connects a subject and an object, then the subject has to be parallel to the object. I guess that's what sayantanc2k meant too. Thank you!

I think, if we can put it in simple terms it is this: a linking verb is a parallelism marker only if there is also an object in the sentence. In that case, the subject and object have to be parallel.
Please correct me if I am wrong.