Sentence Correction Exercises

[Miss Mae]

How could the answer be letter E?

In the fine print at the end of the document lies the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that result from civil unrest.

A. lies the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that
B. lies the clauses that make us liable for any expenses which
C. lies the clause that make us liable for any expenses that
D. lie the clauses that makes us liable for any expenses which
E. lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that

I answered letter C, but was told that The subject the clauses requires a plural verb; change lies to lie.

[Mwita Chacha]

This case is an example of subject-verb inversion constructions in English language. In such constructions, the normal Subject+Verb sentence construction pattern is reversed to become Verb+Subject pattern. If we decide to construct the sentence you have presented by using normal Subject+Verb structure, it will read ''The clauses that make us liable for any expenses that result from civil unrest lie in the fine print at the end of the document.'' It has now become clear that the subject of the sentence is the plural noun 'clauses,' and, as such, it requires the plural verb 'lie.' Consequently, He/she was right the person who told you that the right answer to that question is  E, not C.

[Joe Carillo]

Mwita is absolutely correct in saying that the construction in question is an inverted sentence. She also shows why it is so and clearly explains the typical inverted sentence structure. Her answer, however, doesn’t address the question of why the correct answer could only be (E) “lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that,” and not (D) “lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses which.” I will therefore elaborate on her analysis.

As we will recall, an inverted sentence is one that deliberately departs from the normal declarative form. In this particular case, we have this rather structurally unwieldy sentence: “The clauses that make us liable for any expenses that result from civil unrest lie in the fine print at the end of the document.” We can see that although that sentence is grammatically correct, its bad syntax makes it clunky and difficult to comprehend.

In contrast, the form of inversion presented in the test puts the prepositional phrase “in the fine print at the end of the document” at the beginning of the sentence, and then positions the intransitive verb “lie” ahead of its subject “the clauses.” This inverted sentence is the result: “In the fine print at the end of the document lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that result from civil unrest.”

As we can see, inversion has made the sentence not only much more readable but also highly emphatic. This improvement in syntax comes at a price, though. When we look at the inverted sentence, it strongly appears that the subject of the verb “lie” is the singular noun “document”—not the plural “clauses”—so the reader is apt to be tempted to correct that verb to the singular form “lies.”

When constructing inverted sentences, it is therefore crucial to identify its true subject correctly. That true subject is the subject of the main clause of the inverted sentence, and the verb should agree with the number of that subject, not with that of the noun that intervenes or comes before it. Indeed, the singular verb form “lies” for the plural “clauses” is what makes (C) “lies the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that” incorrect.

That, however, still leaves as possible correct answers either (D) “lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses which” and (E) “lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that.” So what is it that makes E the only correct answer?

It’s the use in E of the relative pronoun “that” as opposed to the use in D of the relative pronoun “which.” Remember now that in American English, “that” is used when the relative clause is restrictive or indispensable to the meaning of the sentence, and “which” (preceded by a comma) is used when the relative clause is nonrestrictive or not absolutely necessary to that meaning. In the inverted sentence in question here, the relative clause “that result from civil unrest” is clearly a restrictive relative clause, one strongly bound semantically to the noun “expenses” in that sentence.

[Miss Mae]

I thought the absence of a comma before which is the only reason that made letter D wrong.

Anyway, does this mean that subjects in inverted sentences are always in the main clause?

[Miss Mae]

Could you also explain this further?

With his sub-four minute mile Bannister broke a psychological barrier,
inspiring thousands of others to attempt overcoming seemingly insurmountable hurdles.

A. inspiring thousands of others to attempt overcoming
B. inspiring thousands of others to attempt to overcome
C. inspiring thousands of others to overcome
D. and inspired thousands of others to attempt to overcome
E. and inspired thousands of others to attempt overcoming

There must be a better reason why letter D is the answer [The explanation was: ‘inspired’ is correctly parallel to ‘broke’, and ‘attempt to overcome’ is idiomatic.]

[Joe Carillo]

Regardless of where you got it, I think what we have here is a badly constructed English language proficiency test. Both from the grammar and sentence structure standpoints, (D) “and inspired thousands of others to attempt to overcome” simply couldn’t be the correct answer.

See what happens when we use answer D in that sentence:

“With his sub-four minute mile Bannister broke a psychological barrier, and inspired thousands of others to attempt to overcome seemingly insurmountable hurdles.”

The comma preceding the additive clause “and inspired thousands of others to attempt to overcome seemingly insurmountable hurdles” makes the sentence structurally defective. Since both the first clause “Bannister broke a psychological barrier” and “(Bannister) inspired thousands of others to attempt to overcome seemingly insurmountable hurdles” have the same subject, that comma is unnecessary and only serves to truncate the compound sentence. The correct construction is to treat the verb phrases “broke a psychological barrier” and “inspired thousands of others…” as a simple compound verb phrase unpunctuated by a comma (it would also be in the interest of clarity to put a comma after the prepositional phrase “with his sub-four minute mile”), as follows :

“With his sub-four minute mile, Bannister broke a psychological barrier and inspired thousands of others to attempt to overcome seemingly insurmountable hurdles.”

A comma after the first coordinate clause would have been necessary had the second verb phrase used the pronoun “he” for “Bannister” as its subject, in which case it would have become a full-bodied second coordinate clause on its own, as follows:

“With his sub-four minute mile Bannister broke a psychological barrier, and he inspired thousands of others to attempt to overcome seemingly insurmountable hurdles.”
 
For largely the same reason, answer (E) “and inspired thousands of others to attempt overcoming” is also an incorrect answer.

(C) “inspiring thousands of others to overcome” is actually a possible answer purely from a grammatical and structural standpoint. From a semantic standpoint, however, it’s incorrect because it gives the wrong sense that thousands of other people have already overcome insurmountable hurdles by following Bannister’s example. This, of course, isn’t the case at all; their surmounting of their individual hurdles is just an expectation, not yet a reality.

This leaves either (A) “inspiring thousands of others to attempt overcoming” or (B) “inspiring thousands of others to attempt to overcome” as the only possible correct answers. Both the form “to attempt overcoming” (infinitive + gerund) and the form “to attempt to overcome” (infinitive + infinitive) yield a semantically valid sense for the sentence, so they are both correct answers. Stylistically and euphonically, however, I prefer answer B, in which case the sentence should read as follows:

“With his sub-four minute mile Bannister broke a psychological barrier, inspiring thousands of others to attempt to overcome seemingly insurmountable hurdles.”

I must say that the explanation you cited justifying (D) “and inspired thousands of others to attempt to overcome” as the correct answer is pure nonsense. There is neither logical nor imperative need for the verbs “inspired” and “broke” to be set in parallel in that sentence, and to say that the form “attempt to overcome” is correct because it’s idiomatic is a vapid, insupportable explanation. It’s evident that the developer of that test sentence isn’t very conversant with the English language, in the process providing faulty answer choices in many respects.

To avoid befuddling our English, we should guard against such low-quality English proficiency tests that litter the World Wide Web.

[Miss Mae]

I had answered B!

Can you suggest high-quality English proficiency tests then?

[Mwita Chacha]

I had answered B!

Can you suggest high-quality English proficiency tests then?

Are those found in this Forum!

[Miss Mae]

Thank you, Sir. Thank you, Mwita Chacha.

[Mwita Chacha]

Mwita is absolutely correct in saying that the construction in question is an inverted sentence. She also shows why it is so and clearly explains the typical inverted sentence structure. Her answer, however, doesn’t address the question of why the correct answer could only be (E) “lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that,” and not (D) “lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses which.” I will therefore elaborate on her analysis.

As we will recall, an inverted sentence is one that deliberately departs from the normal declarative form. In this particular case, we have this rather structurally unwieldy sentence: “The clauses that make us liable for any expenses that result from civil unrest lie in the fine print at the end of the document.” We can see that although that sentence is grammatically correct, its bad syntax makes it clunky and difficult to comprehend.

In contrast, the form of inversion presented in the test puts the prepositional phrase “in the fine print at the end of the document” at the beginning of the sentence, and then positions the intransitive verb “lie” ahead of its subject “the clauses.” This inverted sentence is the result: “In the fine print at the end of the document lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that result from civil unrest.”

As we can see, inversion has made the sentence not only much more readable but also highly emphatic. This improvement in syntax comes at a price, though. When we look at the inverted sentence, it strongly appears that the subject of the verb “lie” is the singular noun “document”—not the plural “clauses”—so the reader is apt to be tempted to correct that verb to the singular form “lies.”

When constructing inverted sentences, it is therefore crucial to identify its true subject correctly. That true subject is the subject of the main clause of the inverted sentence, and the verb should agree with the number of that subject, not with that of the noun that intervenes or comes before it. Indeed, the singular verb form “lies” for the plural “clauses” is what makes (C) “lies the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that” incorrect.

That, however, still leaves as possible correct answers either (D) “lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses which” and (E) “lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that.” So what is it that makes E the only correct answer?

It’s the use in E of the relative pronoun “that” as opposed to the use in D of the relative pronoun “which.” Remember now that in American English, “that” is used when the relative clause is restrictive or indispensable to the meaning of the sentence, and “which” (preceded by a comma) is used when the relative clause is nonrestrictive or not absolutely necessary to that meaning. In the inverted sentence in question here, the relative clause “that result from civil unrest” is clearly a restrictive relative clause, one strongly bound semantically to the noun “expenses” in that sentence.

The second sentence in the fifth paragraph looks somewhat fragmented, as nowhere in it one can locate the predicate for that noun clause ''That true subject is the...'' At the first blush, of course, I thought 'that' was acting as a determiner for the noun phrase 'true subject,' but later realized it did not qualify to be a demonstrative adjective inasmuch as it was only being mentioned for the first time in the paragraph.
Looking carefully at the first paragraph of the posting, I also ended up confused regarding what is an antecedent noun for the subjective and possessive pronouns 'she' and 'her.' With the absence of comma after 'Mwita' in the first sentence, it strongly  appears that 'she' and 'her' are referring to the proper noun 'Mwita,' which is apparently the only subject that comes before. If so, and in order for the trouble of confusing members' sex not to recur, I'm obliged to make it clear that Mwita Chacha is one of the Forum's male members.

[Joe Carillo]

Let’s take a close look at the second sentence of the fifth paragraph:

When constructing inverted sentences, it is therefore crucial to identify its true subject correctly. That true subject is the subject of the main clause of the inverted sentence, and the verb should agree with the number of that subject, not with that of the noun that intervenes or comes before it. Indeed, the singular verb form “lies” for the plural “clauses” is what makes (C) “lies the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that” incorrect.

Now let’s zero on the second sentence itself:

That true subject is the subject of the main clause of the inverted sentence, and the verb should agree with the number of that subject, not with that of the noun that intervenes or comes before it.

The second sentence is, of course, a compound sentence consisting of two coordinate clauses linked by the conjunction “and,” as follows:

First coordinate clause: “that true subject is the subject of the main clause of the inverted sentence”

        Its subject is: “that true subject” (“that” is being used here not as a determiner but as a 
            pointing adjective)
   The verb is: “is” (functioning as a linking verb)
   The predicate is: “the subject of the main clause of the inverted sentence”

Second coordinate clause: “the verb should agree with the number of that subject, not with that of the noun that intervenes or comes after it”

Now let’s resolve your confusion about the first paragraph of that posting of mine:

Mwita is absolutely correct in saying that the construction in question is an inverted sentence. She also shows why it is so and clearly explains the typical inverted sentence structure. Her answer, however, doesn’t address the question of why the correct answer could only be (E) “lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that,” and not (D) “lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses which.” I will therefore elaborate on her analysis.

I really see nothing grammatically or semantically wrong with the sentence constructions in that paragraph. The problem is that I assumed that your name—“Mwita Chacha”—is a female name rather than a male name. Before deciding on what your gender was, I actually checked your Forum membership account but found that you didn’t specify it. Now, in the Philippines where I’m based, names of people are strongly influenced by Hispanic culture. First names that end in the letter “a” are expected to be feminine (as in “Maria,” “Teresa,” and “Celia”), and first names that end in “o” are expected to be masculine (as in “Mario,” “Roberto,” and “Eduardo”). I must admit that my cultural upbringing got the better of me, making me instinctively assume—and wrongly—that “Mwita” is a feminine name. In retrospect, I should have checked your gender with you first before using the pronouns “she” and “her” to refer to you. For not doing so, Mwita, I’m offering my profuse apologies.

[Mwita Chacha]

Apology accepted! After the controversy, I'm sure you will agree with me that assuming other people's genders basing on our knowledge of how names are spelled in different cultures is naturally ill-advised and totally inappropriate action. If I am not mistaken, it's safe in English language to use the 'it' as a pronoun when we are unsure about the gender of an antecedent noun or when we don't want to show the gender of a person under discussion. Therefore, rather than making presumptions regarding others' sexes--which is something improper in all respects--it is expedient to apply the neuter pronoun 'it' when talking about people we're not certain about their gender stasuses or when talking about people we consciously want to avoid exposing their genders.

[Joe Carillo]

I’m delighted that you have accepted my apology! I must hasten to add, though, that it’s neither safe nor acceptable in English—indeed, it’s considered extremely bad form—to use the pronoun “it” for a person whose gender is unknown. In polite circles, it is terribly insulting to refer to a person as an “it” whether that person’s gender is known or not; doing so is to denigrate and reduce that person to the level of an animal or thing.

For all the richness of its lexicon, in fact, the English language is disconcertingly deficient when it comes to the indefinite pronouns. Apart from having no specific pronoun for a person of unknown gender, English also has no non-gender-specific possessive pronoun when the antecedent is the indefinite pronoun “everybody” or “everyone”; using the neuter possessive pronoun “its” simply will not do. The grammatically acceptable possessive in such cases is, of course, the unwieldy form “his or her,” as in the sentence “Everybody got his or her midyear bonus yesterday.” Many grammarians still deem the use of the non-gender-specific plural “they” in such situations as improper and ungrammatical: “Everybody got their midyear bonus yesterday.” A grammatically safe alternative is, of course, to pluralize “everybody” to the plural pronoun “all” so the non-gender-specific possessive pronoun “their” can be used instead, as follows: “All got their midyear bonus yesterday.”

[javedjon]

Just a fast hello also to thank you for discussing your ideas on this page.