A Simple question on Parallelism

[phanipavan_84]

Hi,

I read in one of OG's answer explanations that a Gerund Past Participle can be in parellel with a Gerund Present Participle. I am not able to get this logic.
Can you people throw some light on it.

Also how are these words "spawned" and "extending" Parallel.

Also can you suggest any good resource to study more on Parallelism, Modifiers.

Regards,
Pavan

[anusuthakaran]

Hi Pavan,
In the example that you came across in OG ( a giant fungus....)
'spawned' and 'extending' are two participles.
The past participle is used in the 'passive' case. Here the tentacles are spawned by
a single fertilized spore.
The present participle is used in 'active' case. The fungus is extending for more than 30 acres.

[StaceyKoprince]

I think I remember the question you're talking about. Generally speaking, both are functioning as gerunds and both are functioning as participles. That's good enough (even though one is past and one is present). It would be nice if both were past or both were present, but the structure of the sentence doesn't allow us to do that.

It might also help you to think about the meaning. The "spawned" part already happened and is over, right? While the "extending" part is still true today (though it started in the past). So it makes sense that the former has to be a past participle while the latter has to be a present participle, because they are taking place over different periods of time.