First discovered more than 30 years ago, Lina's sunbird, a four-and-a-

What's the sentence structure for this sentence? Can someone comment?

Is it something like this for the correct answer choice...

First discovered more than 30 years ago, Lina's sunbird, a four-and-a-half-inch animal

1) found in the Philippines
2) and resembling a hummingbird, has shimmering metallic colors on its head

First discovered more than 30 years ago, Lina's sunbird, a four-and-a-half-inch animal found in the Philippines and that resembles a hummingbird, has shimmering metallic colors on its head; a brilliant orange patch, bordered with red tufts, in the center of its breast; and a red eye.

A. found in the Philippines and that resembles
B. found in the Philippines and that, resembling
C. found in the Philippines and resembling
D. that is found in the Philippines and it resembles
E. that is found in the Philippines, resembling

IMO the answer should be A, because the correct idiom is 'found that'. the verb 'resembles' is correctly stated in simple present tense.

First discovered more than 30 years ago, (-modifier-) Lina's sunbird (-subject-), a four-and-a-half-inch animal found in the Philippines and that resembles a hummingbird (-modifier-),has(-verb-) shimmering metallic colors on its head ;a brilliant orange patch, bordered with red tufts, in the center of its breast; and a red eye. (-list of things-)

You are asked to complete the second modifier:

A. found in the Philippines and that resembles
Not parallel : "found" (modifier) "resembles" (verb)
D. that is found in the Philippines and it resembles
Not parallel, and moreover in a parallel list like this one, if the subject is the same, repeating the subject (and IT resembles) is considered redundant.

B. found in the Philippines and that, resembling
E. that is found in the Philippines, resembling
Those are not parallel as well "found/is found" and "resembling". ( and the comma + ing modifier is not used correctly)

C is parallel, and reminds us that the GMAT considers those modifiers perfectly parallel:
found in the Philippines and resembling
Another Official Question about this concept: scientists-have-recently-discovered-what-could-be-the-9394.html

Why do we have to discard option A on the pretext that "found" and that resembles' not parallel

(1) Noun: When we use the verb+ing as a noun this is called a "gerund".
"Swimming is a great way to stay in shape."

(2) Verb: To be an actual verb, the present participle needs a helping verb such as is/are/was/were/will be/etc.
"We were swimming at the beach all day."

(3) Adjective (Noun Modifier): When the present participle is acting as an adjective, we attach it to the noun with NO COMMA (it can appear EITHER before OR after the noun).
"The fish swimming in the pond are beautiful." - we are describing the fish (they are the ones swimming)
"The swimming pool is a great place to cool off in the summer." - we are describing the pool (it is the swimming one)

(4) Adverb (Adverbial Modifier): When the present participle is acting as an adverb (modifying clauses or verbs), we attach it to the noun WITH A COMMA.
"We had a great day at the beach, swimming in the water and building sandcastles." - now we are describing the great day we had at the beach (it is telling more about the action), and both swimming and building are parallel.

Now, let's compare these to the answer choices.

(a) "resembles" is a verb and part of the "that" clause. This is NOT parallel to the noun modifier "found"(which animal? the one found..."). By the way, "found" is a past participle and can do basically the same jobs as a present participle.

(b) ", resembling" is an adverb, so it must modify the clause or phrase preceding it (that...has shining metallic colors) - so the resembling describes how it has a shining metallic color on its head. This is strange, but more importantly isn't really in line with the meaning of the sentence.

(c) "and resembling" is a noun modifier and is correctly parallel to the noun modifier "found". (which animal? the one resembling a hummingbird.)

(d) "and it resembles" is a main verb and IS parallel to "is found" BUT the presence of the "it" breaks the overall parallelism within the "that" clause. (I should be able to switch the items in a list...THAT X AND Y....So would we say: "That it resembles and is found"? NO the "it" doesn't work!

(e) ", resembling" is an adverb, so it must modify the clause or phrase preceding it (that is found in the Philippines"), so now saying "resembling a hummingbird" is telling us more about how it was found in the Philippines, which doesn't make any sense.

We can ditch (A) and (B) pretty quickly: "and" is followed by a phrase beginning with "that" -- and there's nothing earlier in the sentence that could possibly be parallel to the phrase beginning with "that."

(C) doesn't sound parallel, but it is. "Found" is just an adjective that modifies the animal, and so is "resembling." Sure, they don't sound the same, but they're both adjectives, so we're all good here. Let's keep (C).

(For more on parallelism and "-ing" words, check out this week's Verbal Experts' Topic of the Week: https://gmatclub.com/forum/experts-topi ... 39780.html).

The parallelism isn't quite right in (D), either. The phrase that follows "and" is a brand-new clause: "it resembles a hummingbird." And that can't possibly be correct here, since "it resembles a hummingbird" isn't parallel to "that is found in the Philippines". Besides, the underlined portion is part of a modifier, and I have no idea why we would stick a full, independent clause inside that modifier. So (D) is gone.

So we're down to (C) and (E). Here's (E) again:


The trouble here is that we have a messy (and unnecessary) "double modifier": "that is found in the Philippines" modifies the animal, and so does the phrase "resembling a hummingbird." Notice that (C) puts these two modifiers in a nice, parallel structure. That isn't happening in (E) -- it's almost as if "resembling a hummingbird" is trying to modify the other modifier, "that is found in the Philippines," and that just doesn't make any sense. (C) is much clearer, and it's our winner.

I selected option D with below understanding:
a four-and-a-half-inch animal that is found in the Philippine is my first independent clause with that as a subject and is found as verb

Moving on
and it resembles it correctly refers to 4.5 inch animal (no pronoun ambiguity here) and with it as subject and resembles as verb, this also forms
another independent clause (IC)

Further in option C, can found act as verb-ed modifier which modifies Lisa's sunbird by jumping over animal?

Hi Arpit, perhaps this was the reason for confusion. Following is just a phrase (and not a clause):

a four-and-a-half-inch animal that is found in the Philippines

This basically comprises a phrase (a four-and-a-half-inch animal) + a Dependent clause (that is found in the Philippines).

Such structures always function as phrases in English grammar.


Correct.


found is indeed a past participle here, modifying four-and-a-half-inch animal.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses Clauses (Independent and Dependent), their application and examples in significant detail. If someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

Hi GMATNinja
I am totally confused with modifiers in option C/D, I am unable to get to OA: C
I selected option D with below understanding:
a four-and-a-half-inch animal that is found in the Philippine is my first independent clause with that as a subject and is found as verb
Moving on
and it resembles it correctly refers to 4.5 inch animal (no pronoun ambiguity here) and with it as subject and resembles as verb, this also forms
another independent clause (IC)
Both ICs are correctly joined by AND as connector since there are only two elements in this list. I feel meaning wise and grammatically this option sounds good.
Further as you mentioned in your post the underlined portion is part of a modifier, and I have no idea why we would stick a full, independent clause inside that modifier
are you considering that is found in the Philippines as modifier? Further in option C, can found act as verb-ed modifier which modifies Lisa's sunbird by jumping over animal? Note here there is no helping verb associated with found
WR,
Arpit

Let me know if my understanding is correct for option D:

First discovered more than 30 years ago, Lina's sunbird, a four-and-a-half-inch animal (Clause 1)
that is found in the Philippines (pronoun that is modifying animal)
and it resembles a hummingbird, (and suggests parallelism with it refers back to animal and is found and resembles are verbs for subject - animal) . Hope pronoun is not ambiguous here
has
shimmering[/color] metallic colors on its head,
a brilliant orange patch, bordered with red tufts,
in the center of its breast; and a red eye. (cont. of clause 1)

The only issue I found in D is usage of AND since AND only is advised to use before last element in parallel list, i.e, before has

a four-and-a-half-inch animal that is found in the Philippines is a phrase not a clause since in spite of having a subject and verb, it communicates partial meaning.
Am I interpreting you correctly?