if you tell that joke again, i will punch you
... it's "will", since you certainly can tell the joke again (though you would be ill advised to do so).
if you tell that joke again, i will punch you
RonPurewal Wrote:zarak_khan Wrote:Hi Ron,
I cant understand the following:
also, the presence of a verb in choice a creates bad parallelism, because 'a level' does not have a verb. the two parts of the comparison must have the same grammatical structure; if the initial part (a level) doesn't have a verb, the second part can't have one either.
Can you change the question sentence into a correct construction that uses verbs in both parts?
Thanks!
sure -- here's one such version
If current trends continue, by the year 2010 carbon emissions in the United States will soar to a level that is more than one-third higher than was the level in 1990.
tim Wrote:First, be careful bumping questions. Every time you do that it puts the question at the absolute end of the queue for us to answer. Bumping a question is the most effective way to cause a delay in getting your question answered.
As for your first question, the main thing you need to do is find an antecedent for "that", which in this case is "level", so we're fine. We're comparing a level to a level, and we mustn't assume that both levels were in 1990 (in fact, if we did, the sentence would have an absurd meaning!).
Your examples 1 and 2 are wrong because they don't include a pronoun, so it's unclear what is being compared. 3 is wrong because if we replace "it" with "level", we are now comparing "level" (which is a noun) with "level was" (which is a clause).
MichaelL805 Wrote:Why "that" is ok here, while in other sentence, "that" is not allowed.
rschunti Wrote:If current trends continue, by the year 2010 carbon emissions in the United States will soar to a level more than one-third higher than were those in 1990, according to official projections.
A. will soar to a level more than one-third higher than were those
B. will soar to a level more than one-third higher than that
RonPurewal Wrote:that isn't what the words say.
the words say "...to a level more than 1/3 higher than _____"
so, to create a proper comparison, we need something in the blank that's comparable to a numerical "level". not emissions.
RonPurewal Wrote:yes, as long as that stuff appeared in a larger context in which it made sense.
remember, you don't have to know how to WRITE comparison sentences -- you just have to find the parts and check whether they're parallel.
is 'more than one-third higher than that in 1990' a modifier to 'a level'?
i think the full structure is 'a level (that is) more than 1/3 higher than the level in 1990 (is)'. but i am confused about the tense. in my opinion, 'level in 1990' should use 'was' because it is something in the past. and once we choose 'was', it shouldn't be omitted...