parallelism: Why decorations are allowed

[aflaamM589]

Dear instructors,

In two part parallell consetuction Not X But Y, why rather is allowed after But (Foundation of GMAT verbal chapter 7)

A tomato is not a vegetable but rather a fruit

Moreover, why verb is vs drives take precedence over Not X but Y parallellism in following example:
The agency [b]is[/b] not a fully independent entity but instead [b]derives[/b] its authority from congress



Similarly in and parallellism below,lked is parallell with began and why later is allowed?
is it the case of not 100% pure parallellism?

She liked other kinds of fruits and later began to like kiwis, too

Thank you very much for your time and consideration

[RonPurewal]

'rather' and 'later' are adverbs. like other adverbs (and like other modifiers in general), they can jump in there without affecting anything.

I'll have a Diet Coke and a steak.
I'll have a Diet Coke and a well-done porterhouse steak.
these sentences are both fine. i doubt you'd claim otherwise.

the insertion of 'rather' and/or 'later' is OK for the same reason why it's OK to toss in 'well-done' and 'porterhouse'.

[RonPurewal]

Moreover, why verb is vs drives take precedence over Not X but Y parallellism in following example:
The agency [b]is[/b] not a fully independent entity but instead [b]derives[/b] its authority from congress

two things here.

1/
this is still a parallel construction, since 'but' is also a parallel signal by itself.
I am not a pilot, but I know how to fly this airplane.

2/
there are two ideas here:
/a/ the agency is not an independent entity;
/b/ it derives its authority from congress.
even if you wanted to write these ideas with a 'not X but Y' construction, that would be plainly impossible to do, since you can't write "not is".
the only way to negate "is", in the english language, is "is not".

[RonPurewal]

finally, please take care to write your questions more clearly.
• complete sentences
• punctuation (questions should end with "?")

Moreover, why verb is vs drives take precedence over Not X but Y parallellism in following example:

i had to re-read this ^^ five or six times before i had any idea what it meant. i almost gave up completely.
(in fact, to be honest, i never really understood it—i just deduced what you were asking from the context of the example.)

[aflaamM589]

Thank you Ron and sorry for the inconvenience. I should have been careful while writing.

[RonPurewal]

great, thanks.