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"The nature of Communism is such that Stalin would have fallen back on the use of force sooner or later, the perverse ends of his policies ensuring resistance irrespective of how he went about pursuing them."

Does this sentence work - strictly on grammatical grounds?

Clive · Accepted Answer

Hi,

Didn't we already discuss this?

Clive

SuperESL · Answer

Clive,

The sentence is different. My main purpose this time is to ascertain the rules governing a rather common sentence structure, which involves a simple verb in the first clause that is followed by a second clause with a verb in progressive -ing form.

(1) "The plane [fell] from the sky, [spiraling] uncontrollably on the way down."
(2) "The nature of Communism [is] such that Stalin would have fallen back on the use of force sooner or later, the perverse ends of his policies [ensuring] resistance irrespective of how he went about pursuing them."

I was wondering to what extent must the two clauses in a sentence with a structure like this be logically connected?

The connection in the first sentence is obvious: the second clause describes the manner in which the plane fell from the sky, which is stated in the first clause. In other words, the second clause is clearly connected to the first clause in that it elaborates on it. In the second sentence the connection is much more ambiguous: that the perverse ends of Stalin's policies were bound to incite resistance does not really explain what the nature of Communism is or why Stalin would have fallen back on the use of force. There seems to be a vague kind of connection: Communism is authoritarian (this is only implied but never stated in the sentence) --> authoritarian regimes use force to stamp out resistance --> Stalin's policies were so perverse that they were bound to bring about resistance --> Stalin would have used force to handle resistance. This logical sequence, however, is never spelled out explicitly in the sentence. You may say the two clauses are in fact independent sentences with distinct and unrelated meanings.

My question is, should I employ this kind of {first clause [verb] + second clause [verb+ing]} structure only when the logical connection between the two clauses is as clearly stated as in sentence one?

Sorry for being so tedious. Thank you for your patience.

Clive · Answer

Hi,

It's close enough to the previous discussion that I think I'll sit this one out, if you don't mind.

Clive

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