That twenty-one ceramic dog figurines were discovered during

[RonPurewal]

"during" is not a __ing construction. it's just a preposition, like "in" or "within".

[RonPurewal]

it's a bit worrying that you would ask this question, actually (with "during" characterized as an __ing construction).

...are you thinking about WHAT THE WORDS MEAN?

remember that, as a FIRST step in any of these problems, you MUST understand (1) the intended meaning of the sentence, (2) the function of the words (= why are the words there? what are they DOING in the sentence?).

here, "excavating" is a __ing form, derived from the verb "excavate".
if you think about that, it will become very clear, very quickly, that "during" is not derived from any such verb.

you can't just blindly look at the forms of words, without thinking about what they MEAN and what they're DOING!

[aflaamM589]

I apologize for asking that silly question.
My bad

[eveH982]

Do we have a meaning error in

B Twenty-one ceramic dog figurines discovered at the excavation

or only Subject Verb issue?( non underlined part has 'has' in it)

ya, there's also a problem with the meaning there. (the figurines themselves didn't just magically double the number; the discovery of those figurines did.)

hi ron~ as you explained here, one quantity cannot "magically double" something else. but there's another prep SC in which the OA is
"Retail sales rose 8/10 of 1 percent in August, intensifying expectations that personal spending in the July-September quarter would more than double the 1.4 percent growth rate in personal spending for the previous quarter. "

in both of the sentences, "double" means " to make something twice as big or twice as much", right?

here "personal spending" is a figure/quantity noun, and it seems it can "double" something.


so i still wonder why "Twenty-one ceramic dog figurines" cannot double something. we don't choose this because we have a better choice? i.e. "the discovery doubles something" makes more sense than "a quantity noun doubles something" ?

Thanks!

[RonPurewal]

"personal spending" is a thing that can actually change.
if personal spending INCREASES enough to double something, then, it's accurate to say that "personal spending doubled X thing".

in the same way, I could say that (rising) gas prices have doubled my monthly travel cost. again, gas prices are things that can CHANGE -- so, by so changing, they can "double" some other, aggregate figure.

"dog figurines", on the other hand, are clearly not things that can CHANGE in a way that could affect an overall statistical figure.

[yuex700]

"personal spending" is a thing that can actually change.
if personal spending INCREASES enough to double something, then, it's accurate to say that "personal spending doubled X thing".

in the same way, I could say that (rising) gas prices have doubled my monthly travel cost. again, gas prices are things that can CHANGE -- so, by so changing, they can "double" some other, aggregate figure.

"dog figurines", on the other hand, are clearly not things that can CHANGE in a way that could affect an overall statistical figure.

Hi,ron
thanks for your explanation in this topic,but I still have some problems.I can understand that "dog figurines" can not "double" something because it can not change in that way,I wonder that is the "discovery" can change in that way?

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

This is a tricky one! Be careful about what's being doubled here: it's not the number of artifacts, but 'the number of these artifacts known to exist'. Since the thing being doubled is piece of knowledge, then a discovery is certainly the kind of thing that could double it.