shanks2020 wrote:
Why can't "that" be implied in option A(...and (that)they, therefore make good watch birds.)Hence, more concise.
kavitaverma wrote:
How is option A incorrect?
I have read a rule where in comparisons if the subjects in both the sentences are same then 'that' can be omitted in the second clause. Here subject is same for both: Pomeranian Geese.
Hello,
shanks2020 and
kavitaverma. I suspect that this question would prove much more challenging for non-native speakers of English. The reason the original sentence is suboptimal is not because of a missing
that, but because of what is present in the extraneous
they. If you want to make the case that the subject
Pomeranian Geese carries over, something that is certainly permissible in such a short
X and Y construct, you then want to keep the elements X and Y parallel with the geese serving as the head of each clause. You can quickly spot the redundancy in the latter half of the sentence this way:
Pomeranian Geese greet vistors loudly AND
[Pomeranian Geese] they therefore make good watch birds(A) would be fine if it read,
Pomeranian Geese greet visitors loudly and therefore make good watch birds.The parallel verbs are marked, and the subject is, in fact, understood to carry over to the second element without
that.
That is more of an issue when there are more words packed into element X, such that it might be confusing to a reader that element Y was triggering. We see this often in cases in which element X branches or itself has two parts connected by
and:
John said that he talked to Sally and Hwang and...It would be appropriate to continue the sentence with another
that to allow the reader to logically anticipate a consequence of what John said. An example:
that dinner reservations at 6.00pm would be fine.Answer choice (D) is a safe and parallel option, not to mention a meaningful one (unlike (C), for instance, with its
loud visitors). Consider:
The guidebook suggests that Pomeranian Geese greet visitors loudly and that they thus make good watch birds.There is nothing debatable. You could even argue that the objects
visitors and
watch birds at the end complete the parallelism.
Perhaps that clarifies a few matters. Good luck with your studies.
- Andrew
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