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iamdivs
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Usage of While 22 Oct 2020, 22:43
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Quote:
In the United States one of the earliest challengers of the economic principle of free trade was Alexander Hamilton, who in 1792 advocated government policies that would encourage indigenous manufacturing and to protect it from competition from British exports.

(A) and to protect it
(B) but protecting it
(C) while protecting it
(D) for protecting them
(E) to protect them

SC81661.01
Verbal Review 2020 NEW QUESTION
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So I came across this question earlier today, and while I was able to answer it correctly, I got too hung up on the grammer here.

So bear with me for a minute ..

If I am not wrong, 'While' is a subordinate conjunction and should be accompanied by a subject and a verb in the dependent clause (I believe because of ellipsis, subject & verb can be ommitted if they are implied).

So the correct answer for the question above is C,

I am not able to understand how is ellipsis coming into picture here. From what I can see while is followed by 'protecting' which is not a gerund I believe and not a participle. So what part of speech is it?

I would appreciate if any of the recognized experts here could weigh in on this topic. I am sure I am missing something.

Thanks a lot! and I hope you are staying safe! :)

daagh GMATNinja AjiteshArun genesis VeritasKarishma

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GmatKnightTutor
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Usage of While 23 Oct 2020, 15:03
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Might be easier to not go down such a theoretical method in SC.
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Usage of While 01 Nov 2020, 08:57
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iamdivs

I am not able to understand how is ellipsis coming into picture here. From what I can see while is followed by 'protecting' which is not a gerund I believe and not a participle. So what part of speech is it?
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Not exactly ellipsis iamdivs but this is (what's called as) verbless clause.

For example:

Although tired, Peter still finished the race.

Again, you would notice that while although is a subordinating conjunction, it is not followed by a verb (tired is used as a past participle here by the way, and not as a verb).

So, the way to interpret this is:

Although (he was) tired, Peter still finished the race.

In this case, the sentence is:

Alexander Hamilton in 1792 advocated government policies that would encourage indigenous manufacturing while protecting it from competition from British exports.

So, the way to interpret this is:

Alexander Hamilton in 1792 advocated government policies that would encourage indigenous manufacturing while (government policies are/were) protecting indigenous manufacturing from competition from British exports.

Note that for the most part, the implied verb in verbless clause is a form of to be verb, while the implied subject is generally the subject of the main clause.

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