The majority leader denied a motion to allow members of the

I am responding to a pm from fameatop. First of all, let me say --- I heartily applaud everything rustypolymath says ---- truly brilliant contributions to this debate --- the only thing that's unclear to me is: what in tarnation "rusty" about him? He seems spot-on sharp.


Let's look at version (B) of the sentence.

(B) The majority leader denied a motion that would have allowed members of the house to go home at the end of each vote instead of confined to the floor.

Problem with (B)
"instead of" is a preposition --- as such, its object must be a noun or something that behaves as a noun --- say, a substantive clause or a gerund. The object of a preposition cannot be a verb or an infinitive phrase or a participle."Confined" is a participle, not an appropriate object for a preposition.

I really like rustypolymath's point about replacing "instead of" with "in the place of" --- that also shows why this "instead of" construction is incorrect.

We could use "instead of" if we had parallel gerunds ---- for example, the construction "... instead of confining them to the floor" would be correct --- a gerund object for the preposition -- but then we run into parallelism problems. In this particular sentence, the first action "members of the house to go home at the end of each vote" would be too cumbersome if we tried to make it a gerund. Also, the verb "allow" idiomatically takes the infinitive, so we have to stick with infinitives. Those facts make an "instead of" construction impossible in this particular sentence. Below, though, are a few examples of "instead of" with parallel gerunds.
(1) The highway officer recommended taking the mountainous side route instead of waiting on the backed-up freeway.
(2) I enjoy reading a book instead of watching a movie.
(3) The teacher suggested studying the chapter summaries thoroughly instead of trying to re-read all these chapters in their entirety.

I would not go so far as to say the GMAT likes the "rather than" construction and doesn't like the "instead of" construction --- that's too black & white and simplistic. I would say, though, you will see much more of the former than of the latter. You see, both "rather than" and "instead of" have similar meanings ---- the replacement of one thing with another ---- but the former is far more versatile than the latter. The construction "instead of" is a preposition, only a preposition, and can only have a noun (or noun-like thing) as its object. By contrast, the construction "rather than" can act as a preposition or a conjunction --- it can link two nouns or two verbs or participial phrases or infinitive phrases, i.e. two complete actions. Now look at version (E) of the above sentence.
(E) The majority leader denied a motion to allow members of the house to go home at the end of each vote rather than be confined to the floor.

What we have here are two infinitive phrases in parallel --- a mere preposition can't do that! The second clause has several common words omitted, as rustypolymath. Here's (E) again with all the omitted words added in brackets.
(E') The majority leader denied a motion to allow members of the house to go home at the end of each vote rather than [members of the house to] be confined to the floor.

Obviously, that version is way too wordy, but it brings out the infinitive phrases in parallel. By contrast, notice how sleek and elegant version (E) is --- perfect grammar and efficient concision --- that's why it's the best answer.

Does all this make sense?

Mike