Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired,

Hi AndrewN

I don't see why you cannot persuade a THAT clause.

Per the OA, you can persuade someone but you cannot persuade an action or an event (action represented by THAT clause obviously)

But don't we say the following ?

I persuaded THAT ACTION be taken
I persuaded THAT she not be fired
x persuaded THAT Y be fired

OR are both my sentences wrong ?

Hi AndrewN - i think my take-away is you cannot persuade an action but you can persuade a person

Alternatively, recommend works because you can recommend an action BUT you cannot recommend a person.

Correct : I recommend THAT she be fired
Incorrect : I recommend she be fired

Here the first is correct because you are recommending an action but you cannot recommend "she" [a person]

Thoughts on this take-away ?

I heard in one of Erica’s video that both -Ed and -ing are participial phrases and can parallel to each other if it helps sentence to make sense. Is it true? Does it help to explain the question here?

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Hello, zoeuno. Yes, it is true that -ed and -ing participial phrases can be parallel to each other. Take the beginning of this official question, for example:

Dressed as a man and using the name Robert Shurtleff...

The first participle makes more sense than dressing would, since the -ing form would seem to convey that someone was actually getting dressed.

That said, just because you see what is a verb in its natural form being conjugated in -ing or -ed form, you cannot be sure that you are dealing with a participle. Take the sentence at hand, for example:



The pink words are all verbs, while the orange ones are acting as nouns. We are not looking for parallel participial phrases, then, but for parallel actions (verbs) or parallel noun phrases at the end of the sentence—i.e. by [what-ing] and [what-ing]. Since we cannot say by persuaded, we should test the persuading answer choices if we want to see whether it is the noun phrases that will be parallel. A problem, though, arises when we get two words in: persuading that is not the correct way to express this notion. Persuading a person would make sense instead.

This realization forces us to reconsider the persuaded options. And when we see that persuaded as a verb could be parallel to the earlier action turned, we can appreciate that the sentence makes sense. At its heart, Joan of Arc turned the tide and persuaded someone to do something. That is why (D) is the correct answer, not because of parallel participles.

I hope that helps add clarity to the matter. If you have further questions, feel free to ask. Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

KarishmaB

And is a parallelism indicator so I checked what is parallel with liberating ... persuading seemed to be correct. Eliminate A,B and D
C uses passvie voice - eliminate
Hence E, can you please help me understand why it is wrong

If you go back a bit further, you find 'turned' which can be parallel to 'persuaded.'

Joan of Arc ... turned the tide of English victories ... and persuaded Charles... - this looks good.
So we cannot eliminate (A), (B) and (D).

In (C) and (E), even if we assume that 'persuading' is parallel with 'liberating' (though in such cases, it is better to repeat the preposition 'by' to show what it is actually parallel to), the use of 'persuading that...' is incorrect. It doesn't tell us who was persuaded.

A persuaded B to do C.

There has to be someone who is getting persuaded. Instead, one can use 'A insisted that ...' - this would be acceptable.
The meaning of persuade is to prevail on someone to do something. So there has to be a receiver of the action.

Hello Rickooreo,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, Option E is incorrect because the construction of the phrase "persuading that Charles VII of France should claim" leads to an incoherent meaning.

Further, the parallel actions joined by "and" are actually "turned" and "persuaded".

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

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