zoeuno wrote:
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:
Quote:
Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, turned the tide of English victories in her country by liberating the city of Orléans and she persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne.
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