Despite recent increases in sales and cash flow that have propelled au

Hi all

I'm still confused about the grammar structure here. Will it be okay if I use this structure?

"to set dividends more conservatively than they have"

or this structure

"to set dividends more conservatively than they have set""

Since I believe the comparison is logically parallell.

Thanks!

aproposof This comes down to the limitations on using certain verb forms to refer back to earlier verbs.

*If we use HAVE BEEN, it needs to refer back to another form of TO BE.

Correct: "I am happier now than I have been for months."
Incorrect: "I feel happier now than I have been for months."

*If we just use HAVE to form present perfect, it can refer back to almost any previous verb:

"I plan to eat more tonight than I have for the last few weeks."
"Our donors expect to award more grants this year than they have in the past."

Notice, however, that when we do this, it's important to have a modifier on the second term to clarify the comparison. If I just say "Speak more kindly than you have," it isn't really clear. Am I saying to speak more kindly than you EVER have in your life, or than ever have to me in particular, or than you have in the past 15 minutes? The "in the past" above might seem vague, but it does convey the idea that we are comparing to what has been typical throughout the past, rather than just a particular recent stretch of time. The modifier also prevents a logic error: technically, if you say "I plan to eat more than I have ever eaten," you need to exclude that present time from the comparison. This is the same logic that prevents us from saying "China has a larger population than any country." Without OTHER, we're saying that China also has a larger population than itself! I can only leave out that modifier if I am comparing two different entities: "Elena has learned more physics than I have." But even then, if the first part is not in the present tense, we need a clarifying modifier: "Last year, Elena learned more physics than I EVER have."

*If we use HAVE + VERB to form present perfect, it can still refer back to almost any previous verb, but if the verb needs other elements to make sense (e.g. an object or modifier), then we need those elements, too. This is partly because if we didn't want to specify those parts, we would leave out the second verb.

*"I plan to eat more tonight than I have eaten before." (Since there is no object or modifier for "eaten" other than the timeframe, that's all we need.)
*"Valentin has sent more letters to the president than I have sent to my parents." (If I want to compare how many letters *I* have sent to the president, then I should say "than I have" and leave it at that. I could technically say "than I have sent to the president," but it's quite repetitive. The only reason to say "have sent" is to adjust the object or modifier.)


By these standards, both of the forms you propose have flaws:

*"to set dividends more conservatively than they have"
-This is like our second case (HAVE w/o verb). Some folks have proposed that we need the rest of the phrase: "than they have been setting them." That might work if we include the whole thing, but as we saw above, we could also use a simple modifier "than they have in the past." Regardless, the bare "have" won't work.

*"to set dividends more conservatively than they have set""
-This is like our third case (HAVE + verb). We need to either put in the rest ("than they have set them in the past"--redundant but grammatical) or ditch the verb "set" and add a clarifying modifier ("than they have before"). As it stands, this is not proper English.

Despite recent increases in sales and cash flow that have propelled automobile companies’ common stocks to new highs, several industry analysts expect automakers, in order to conserve cash, to set dividends more conservatively than they were.

Option elimination -

(A) to set dividends more conservatively than they were - they were what? Setting? in setting dividends? But none of that is present earlier in the sentence. Wrong

(B) to set dividends more conservatively than they have been - have been what? Setting - to complete the present perfect continuous ( to indicate that the action started in the past and is still relevant in the present. It emphasizes the duration or continuity of the action, e.g., I have been studying for three hours - The action of studying started in the past and is still ongoing at the time of speaking). But "Setting" is not mentioned anywhere in the sentence earlier.

(C) to be more conservative than they have been in setting dividends - to - convey the intent, be more conservative is parallel to than they have been in setting, the right use of the present perfect continuous (the action that started in the past and still relevant in the present)

(D) that they will be more conservative than they were in setting dividends -
In English grammar, "expect that" is commonly used to introduce a subordinate clause that describes the expected action or behavior.
However, the phrase "expect automakers that they will" is not the most concise and effective way to convey the expected action or behavior. It means "expect automakers that automakers will" - Wrong.
We could say, "I expect that automakers will introduce electric vehicles" or "I expect automakers to introduce eclectic vehicles"

Moreover, the use of were is wrong as the meaning is "they have been ... " that is still relevant in the present.

(E) that they will be more conservative than they have been to set dividends - same "that" issue as in D. Moreoer, "to set dividends is wrong on two accounts." One is that it conveys that they have to be more conservative than they have been in their INTENT to set dividends. We are not worried about the intention they are already doing; we just want them to be conservative. Secondly, for the present perfect continuous ( to indicate that the action started in the past and is still relevant in the present. It emphasizes the duration or continuity of the action), we need verb+ing.