Scientists have found new evidence emotions like sadness or

[mschwrtz]

Could you explain further why "in" needs to be between "anger" and "much" in order to be correct?

First, here's the correct version of the sentence.

Scientists have found new evidence that people initially register emotions such as sadness or anger in much the same way as they experience heartburn--by monitoring what's going on within their bodies.

Now, here's a stripped down version of the relevant clause.

People register emotions in the same way as they experience heartburn.

At first glance, this seems to be an idiom about the correct preposition to use with the verb register, but it's not. Rather, the relevant structure here is W Xs in the same way as Y Zs, where W and Y are subjects and X and Z verbs/clauses. (W Xs in the same way that Y Zs is also acceptable.)


I'm going to call this an idiom. I don't really see any powerful larger logic here, any non-idiomatic reason that we need the in here, but we do. Curiously, though idioms are usually easier to determine in stripped down sentences, in this case I find that the idiom is more obvious when the word much is left in.

[ntr1989512]

the question the author posted is wrong!!
the original question is :

Scientists have found new evidence of people initially registering emotions like sadness or anger in much the same way as heartburn--by monitoring what's going on within their bodies.

(A) of people initially registering emotions like sadness or anger in much the same way as
(B) of people initially registering emotions such as sadness or anger much the same as experiencing
(C) that people initially register emotions such as sadness or anger in much the same way as they experience
(D) that a person initially registers emotions such as sadness or anger much the same way as experiencing
(E) that a person initially registers emotions like sadness or anger much the same as


the OA is C
the right interpretation is what ron say about!!

[tim]

thanks..

[SC312]

Ron,

Option A) -> "of people initially registering emotions"

Can we not reject the option A) on the grounds that it uses "PREPOSITION + NOUN + VERB-ING" form which is only correct if the preposition explicitly refers to the noun and not the action that the noun performs ?

Thanks

[RonPurewal]

Absolutely correct. That's a good reason to eliminate that choice.

[divineacclivity]

I understand option C is correct but could you please tell me if a verb is absolutely necessary after 'as' e.g. in "as they experience heartburn"

So, what I mean to ask is a sentence like the following one, in which I removed the verb (they experience) would be wrong, right?
People register emotions such as sadness or anger in much the same way as heartburn

Also, please tell me if any of the following verbs would go with the sentence:
People register emotions such as sadness or anger in much the same way as they do heartburn
--> 'do' implies 'register', right? Please tell me if this is wrong.
People register emotions such as sadness or anger in much the same way as they register heartburn
--> is repetition of the verb 'register' ok?
People register emotions such as sadness or anger in much the same way as they experience heartburn
--> this anyways should be fine because similar is the right answer choice to the question posted.

thank you very much in advance.

[RonPurewal]

Structurally, those versions are all fine.

If you replace "experience" with "register" (which means roughly the same as "detect" here), or vice versa, you get a different meaning.

Specifically:

"- The original sentence states that people detect (= "register") anger by physical means. This is the same way they experience heartburn, because heartburn IS a physical sensation.

- If you use only "experience", then you're saying that people experience anger or sadness as purely physical sensations (like heartburn).
This isn't very reasonable. Those are very strong emotions; people experience strong emotions far beyond physical sensations.

"- If you use only "register", then you're implying that only the detection of each of these things is physical.
For the emotions, that makes sense; in fact, it's the whole point of the sentence.
For heartburn, though, that's not very reasonable. Heartburn is a physical thing, so we should be referring to the entire experience, not simply to its onset.

[divineacclivity]

Structurally, those versions are all fine.

If you replace "experience" with "register" (which means roughly the same as "detect" here), or vice versa, you get a different meaning.

Specifically:

"- The original sentence states that people detect (= "register") anger by physical means. This is the same way they experience heartburn, because heartburn IS a physical sensation.

- If you use only "experience", then you're saying that people experience anger or sadness as purely physical sensations (like heartburn).
This isn't very reasonable. Those are very strong emotions; people experience strong emotions far beyond physical sensations.

"- If you use only "register", then you're implying that only the detection of each of these things is physical.
For the emotions, that makes sense; in fact, it's the whole point of the sentence.
For heartburn, though, that's not very reasonable. Heartburn is a physical thing, so we should be referring to the entire experience, not simply to its onset.

Thank you very much, Ron. I got your point. Structurally they're all fine but heartburn otherwise can NOT be compared with strong emotions such as sadness etc. That does make much sense to me after you explained.

I just didn't get an answer to one other query I had and that is if "as" can be used without a verb, e.g., in the following sentence, if I removed the verb (experience), would the sentence still be correct?
People register emotions such as sadness or anger in much the same way as heartburn. (no verb after "as heartburn")

thank you very much for helping out. I heartily appreciate your help.

[RonPurewal]

That construction is fine, unless it's ambiguous. (It's not ambiguous for that example, since heartburn doesn't have feelings or perceptions.)

This sentence is ambiguous:
I treat most of my friends in the same way as Jared.
... in the same way as I treat Jared?
... in the same way as Jared does?
Can't tell.

[divineacclivity]

That construction is fine, unless it's ambiguous. (It's not ambiguous for that example, since heartburn doesn't have feelings or perceptions.)

This sentence is ambiguous:
I treat most of my friends in the same way as Jared.
... in the same way as I treat Jared?
... in the same way as Jared does?
Can't tell.

Perfect, thank you sir :)

[RonPurewal]

Excellent.