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(1)Teaching Parallelism. Wake. Teaching Parallelism Hisaaki Wake. Introduction Parallelism, or a parallel structure between sentence elements, is a particularly curious grammatical phenomenon in the English language. Among the variety of grammatical features of the linguistic system of English are relatives, subjunctives, and prepositions, but it is parallelism that seems to be located on a rather different level. It is in parallelism where grammar, stylistics, and aesthetics are converged to build up an ideal English sentence, spoken or written.. 1. To recognize elements of. parallelism in a particular sentence, it is important for a learner to understand implicit semantic structures. Teaching parallelism to students in a theoretical or practical manner seems to be quite valuable and effective in writing and reading and even in speaking and listening. There are several reasons for this, primarily, that learning parallelism leads to a deeper appreciation for the structural aspects of the English language. This would especially apply The psychological aspect of parallelism is obvious, for instance, in such a comment seen in A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language: "The following BrE example (of marginal acceptability) shows that it is possible for aren't to act as a contracted form of am not even in declarative contexts: HE WASn't and t probably aren't NORmally. Here the substitution of aren't seems to have resulted from a desire for parallelism with the preceding occurrence of wasn't." (Randolph Quirk, et al. eds., A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (London: Longman, 1989), p. 129.) Notice the use of the word "desire" for parallelism here. I. -93-.

(2) )(¥ . ~H~i. . )(1t. 16~. 1 . 2 irf*-jj-. 2005. 2. to the language's formal and semantic presuppositions in terms of comparison and contrast. Japanese learners of English are often negligent about these aspects, probably due to the lack of semantic concerns in their own native language. This paper systematically explains the essences of parallelism in English sentences and how to better understand it to Japanese students of English. With this knowledge they will in turn enhance their functionality of the English language. Structural understanding of English sentences among learners whose native tongue is Japanese tends to be weak, which is clearly evident when it comes to writing. Typical sentences are often constructed with a single noun complimented by modifiers, whose strangeness is not likely to be easily recognized. Japanese texts often allow the author to finish a sentence with a noun to produce a certain aesthetic effect. However, such sentences in English are seen as blunt and unacceptable in terms of style or aesthetics. Understanding parallel structures between sentences, it can be expected for learners to be fully aware of the implicit rules in composing and constructing English texts. The basic structure of an English sentence is simple - it contains a subject and a verb. In a parallel structure, however, each sentence element is repeated at once, which makes the essence of the structure. In other words, the duality of parallel structure is the alpha and omega. The binary of parallelism almost always determines the limit and core of the addressor's operation in the textual features related to parallelism as well as the addressee's reading activities related to it. In the following sections, a variety of parallelism is discussed in grammatical categories. In addition, a more comprehensive discussion on the significance in deal-94-.

(3) Teaching Parallelism. Wake. ing with parallelism in teaching contexts will follow.. I. Parallelism between Sentence Elements In this section, parallelism is exemplified with sample sentences according to the following grammatical categories: noun, adjective, adverb, verb, and clause. One interesting character of parallelism is that an element in the same grammatical category as that of the precursory item is likely to appear in the following slot, and so the examples are classified according to the grammatical categories.. I -A. Noun Parallelism. The most simplistic structure of parallelism would most commonly be seen in the patterns of "A and B" and of "A or B." Here are two examples with emphasis added: a. I bought a handkerchief and an umbrella for my five-year-old daughter at the shopping mall today.. 2. b. Whether it is a mansion or a condominium doesn't matter to me very much. I just need a place to stay comfortably. A and B in these structures are understood to be parallelism are most often chosen out of the same semantic or structural category of words. In other words, they can be treated in a parallel manner because they are in the same category of things, or put in another way, because they share a common basis. As they share common features on the basis, which is in this case the same grammatical category, their differences Examples shown in this paper are, unless the source is stated, made by me, or those taken from exercise books used at TOFL Seminar in Tokyo, where I have been teaching part-time since 2002, and slightly modified. 2. -95-.

(4) )(.'¥- . ~f,IIf • )('ft. 16~. 1 . 2 ir1*%. 2005.2. can be sensed out in a quite effective way. In the example b. above, for instance, both "mansion" and "condominium" belong to the same rather luxurious type of housing, by which a difference between them .can be found using the semantic principle of contrast. It should also be pointed out that in the case of "A and B," both A and B are referred to as subjects or objects of either a verb or a preposition. In the example "A or B," it is implied that only one of them will be selected in the end. This is rather important since the logic of "and" and "or" is universal throughout all texts in English. The items to be listed are often more than two. With the patterns "A, B, and/or C" and "A, B, C, and/or D," parallelism structures are quite commonly seen. Examples are as follows: c. Stars in the universe vary in temperature, color, and brightness. d. Tomatoes, potatoes, corn, and peppers all originated in Latin America. e. Where do you want to go in the summer, Dorothy - to Massachusetts, Virginia, New Mexico, or Kansas? f. Who do you suspect to be the criminal - Abigail, Margaret, Linda, Lucy, Mary, or me?. It is easily understood that all nouns in c. or e. are objects to the same. preposition, "in" or "to" respectively, which means all are in the object case. By the same token, all the items listed in the example f. are in the object case, which is made clear by the use of "me" instead of "I." In other words, the sentence below is wrong in terms of the basic principle of parallelism: any item in parallelism should be in the same grammatical, stylistic categories as others where it is possible. g. * Who do you suspect to be the criminal - Abigail, Margaret,. -96-.

(5) Teaching Parallelism. Wake. Linda, Lucy, Mary, or I?l. As for the number of items listed in HA, B, and C" and HA, B, or C" structure, it is quite optional: it can be three, four, five and more. Examples follow: h. Among the group of students were John, Jack, Mary and Lucy. I. •. Among the principal artistic movements in the first half of the nineteenth century were Romanticism, Realism, and Naturalism.. J •. lulie was hired by the company because of her skill, experience, and creativity.. k. The process of resolving the identity crisis often involves choosing, integrating, or resolving the conflicts between the beliefs and values.. The subjects of the sentence h. and i., which are rather long and so have been inverted to come at the end of the sentence, show a typical parallelism. In both cases, it is easily found that the three elements "A, B, and C" (with a comma after B optional) take almost the same formalistic features: all nouns end in the -ism suffix beginning with a capital letter in a.; all are gerunds, which are noun equivalents, in the example b. While all the listed nouns in "I" are subjective complements, the abstract nouns "skill," "experience," and "creativity" are all the objects of the preceding "her." Slightly different from the three others is the example k. It is interesting because the first two gerunds "choosing" and "integrating" are semantically interconnected and the third gerund "resolving" does not have such an interconnection with each one of the other two, only having the object "the conflicts between the beliefs and 3. The symbol "*" signifies that the sentence with it is unacceptable.. -97-.

(6) Jt~. . 1'ff,jlJ . Jt1l:. 16~. 1 . 2 itf*-f;f. 2005.2. values." Some important structures such as "both A and B," "either A or B," "neither A nor B," "not only A but also B," "B as well as A," "between A and B," etc. are constructed on the principle of parallelism. There are many examples: 1. Both Ford and Reagan were Republican presidential candidates. and won as such. According to the principle of parallelism, the items A and B should be in the same category as h., above, while the example m. below seems to be unacceptable because of its violation of the principle. m. * Both Ford and delightful were Republican candidates and won. as such. These four examples below are grammatically-correct, and all parallelism structures behave as the subject of each sentence respectively. The principle of subject-verb agreement reveals some interesting issues on the use of the grammatical structures, but it should also be noticed that parallelism is consistently working. Since only one of the items is semantically . selected, either right or left is treated as a singular noun equivalent and the verb agrees with the nearer noun, "left", which is the same in example. 0.,. "neither the teacher nor the students" below:. the verb "were" agrees with the closer" students", not with "the teacher." In p., the verb "am" agrees with the closer "I", which is in the subject case as "Takashi" in the subject case. It is interesting to see the verb "are" agrees with "you" in q., which is probably because "B" is the primary information and "A" is the secondary structure of "B as well as A" also in "not only A but (also) B". n. A: Which way do you think is better to take? -98-.

(7) Teaching Parallelism. Wake. B: I think either right or left is fine. It'll eventually lead to Rome anyway. o. Neither the teacher nor the students were in the classroom. They. went out to the lawn in the schoolyard and discussed the question over there under the beautiful May sky. p. Not only Takashi but (also) I am a big fan of the Seattle Mariners. q. You as well as Takashi are a big fan of the Seattle Mariners, aren't you? In the example q., it is interesting to see that the subject and the verb in the tag question refer to B, or "you", which will be clarified in the next example r. r. Takashi as well as you is a fan of the Seattle Mariners, isn't he? Considering these examples, it can be inferred that unlike those in "(both) A and B" or "(either) A or B," the items in parallelism in the cases of "not only A but (also) B" and "B as well as A" have a hierarchical order between them. In other words, the items used in the latter structures are not even, which means that there is something extra working over the principle of parallelism in the cases of "not only A but (also) B" and "B as well as A.". I -8. Adjective Parallelism. It is known that an "and" is not used between them when two adjectives are interchangeable, for example: a. Arnold would be a fine, strong governor of California. b. Arnold would be a strong, fine governor of California. In these perfectly good sentences in English, the two adjectives are -99-.

(8) x~. . ~{ijlj . x1t. 16~. 1 . 2 ifHt~. 2005.2. thought to be in parallelism. There is no hierarchy between them, and both are in the same grammatical category. If the following example is not acceptable, it means the adjective "fine" and the comparative form "stronger" cannot be set together in the same parallel structure. c. * Arnold will be a fine, stronger governor of California. A comparative form in English implies that there is a basis for comparison and contrast, which is often designated by the use of the conjunction "than" (not a preposition) and that part is missing in the case of c., which then could be revised as follows: d. Arnold will be afine governor of California, stronger than the former.. Thus, an awareness of parallelism should lead one to pay closer attention to the written structure of English. Besides the most basic "A and B" and "A or B," the parallel structures of "both A and B," "either A or B," "neither A nor B," "not only A but (also) B," and "B as well as A" can employ adjectives as follows: e. The rainbows I saw in the Arizona desert were so beautiful and enchanting that my heart leapt up. f . "Dead or Alive" means you can bring a criminal to the authority. being either dead or alive. g. Nancy is not only diligent but (also) intelligent. (=Nancy is intel-. ligent as well as diligent.). The principle of parallelism, which exercises a tremendous amount of effect in structuring a sentence, is working in these examples, which can be seen clearly in these sentences: h. * The rainbows were so beautiful and enchantment that my heart. leapt up. ["Enchantment" is a noun, not an adjective.] -100-.

(9) Teaching Parallelism. I. •. Wake. * "Dead or alive" means you can bring a criminal to the author-. ity being either dead or living. ["Living," although it can be used as an adjective, is a present participle of "live" when used as a complement.] J • * Nancy is not only wise but (also) a girl. ["A girl" IS a noun. equivalent, not an adjective or its equivalent.] The example j. above could be rewritten as follows: k. Not only is Nancy wise but (also) she is a girl. [The adverb. "also" is still optional.] Here in k., of the structure "not only A but (also) B," either A or B is a clause, which is compliant with the requirement of parallelism that both A and B be in the same grammatical category. In the last example in this category below, the two adjectives in the italicized part share a common noun to modify: 1. Some writers aspired to an imported notion of high culture; others identified culture as the immediate experience of ordinary people. This distinction in some degree simply differentiates between urban culture and rural.. 4. The two types of "culture" are distinguished from each other by the contrast of the adjectives "urban" and "rural." The parallelism here is between "urban culture" and "rural culture," but the same comparative base of "culture" is omitted in the second item avoiding being redundant. English sentence tends to be simplified in a manner that avoids redundancy. The implicit principle of parallelism is working for the reader to quickly reconstruct the semantic structure and under4 W. H. New, A History of Canadian Literature, Second Edition (Montreal: McGillQueen UP, 2003), p. 64. -101-.

(10) x* . ~:j;jij • x1t. 16::§ 1 . 2 il1*-¥;}. 2005.2. stand the meaning.. I -C. Adverbial Parallelism. Adverbial parallelism is not limited to genume adverbs. Prepositional phrases and adverbial phrases also behave as adverbial modifiers. The issue here is whether an adverb or an adverbial phrase can be used in parallelism or not. The answer seems to be that the use of an adverb and an adverbial phrase in a structure of parallelism is allowed unless an alternative is possible. Let us look at the following examples: a. John would show up sooner or later. [Both are adjectives and in the comparative.] b. With much care and without being noticed, we could get into the haunted house. [Both items are prepositional phrases and adverbial phrases.] c. ?Quietly and without being interrupted, we could get into the haunted house.. 5. ["Quietly" is an adverb while the latter item,. "without being interrupted," is an adverbial phrase.] d. Being quiet and uninterrupted, we could get into the haunted house. The example d., seems to be good enough, but "quiet" and "uninterrupted" are both complements and adjectives (though "uninterrupted" can also be regarded as a past participle), not adverbs any more. Another "being" could be added to the front of "uninterrupted," which will give a completely symmetrical parallelism, "being quiet and being uninterrupted." In other words, that is why the latter "being" can be A question mark attached to the beginning of a sentence signifies that the sentence is somewhat dubious and may not be accepted as a correct English usage 5. -102-.

(11) Teaching Parallelism. Wake. omitted. The above c. could be revised as follows: e. We could quietly get into the haunted house without being interrupted. Lastly, the sentence below is another clear example of parallelism, in which a pair of adjectives is contrasted: f . This medicine is for external use, not internal use, so please be. careful.. I -D. Verb. Verbs are hereby in this discussion divided into two categories: 1) base forms like "eat," "drink," "speak," etc. and their derivatives like "eats," "ate," "have eaten," and "is eating" ; 2) infinitives like "to eat," "to have eaten," and "to have been eating.". I -D-1. Verb base forms. More than one verb is used in a parallel sentence when they can take place at the same time, or can be done alternatively by a subject of the same sentence. They are typically expressed in the forms "A, B, and. e". or "A, B, or. e". as the following:. a. We walked out in the park and talked about the future. [Both verbs are in the past and followed by an adverbial respectively in the same manner, which makes the structure symmetrical.] b. When you cook eggs, you can beat, boil, or fry them. [All three verbs are attached to the auxiliary "can," which is why all are in the base form. It can also be said that "can" is omitted in the front of "boil" and "fry" respectively. Anyways, the three verbs are included in parallelism.] -103-.

(12) x* . ~f,\If . x1t. 16~. 1 . 2 ir1Jt-ft. 2005.2. c. [George Sisler'] s name is repeated each time Ichiro Suzuki slaps, lines or legs out a base hit, which has been practically non-. stop in recent weeks.. 6. [Since Ichiro Suzuki does not "slap,. line, and leg out a base hit" simultaneously, the conjunction employed here is not "and" but "or."] Here's another example taken from the filmmaker Michael Moore's recent report published in an American newspaper after he attended the Republican Convention 2004: d. If he [John McCain] will join me at the movies, he'll see brave soldiers like himself face the camera and tell the truth to the American people about what is going on in a place called Iraq.. 7. The two verbs "face" and "tell" are in a parallel structure, which take the base form as they do because of the use of the prior perception verb "see." Each has an object, although the latter is with a longer one. Here again, it should be noted that the two sentence elements, mediated by the wonderful adjective "and," take the same verb base form, and is essential in the structure of parallelism.. I -0-2. Infinitive. When more than two to-infinitives are in parallelism, usually only the first one follows a "to," and the others don't, which are exemplified in the following: a. Jack tried to go to bed early in the evening, wake up early in the "Ichiro's pursuit of record renews interest in Sisler--'Guys like that are born that way' " by Dan Raley, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Tuesday, August 31, 2004 [Emphasis added] 7 "The Ebert and McCain Show" by Michael Moore, the USA Today, September 1, 2004. [Emphasis added] 6. -104-.

(13) Teaching Parallelism. Wake. morning, and live a healthy life every day, but he couldn't.. Since the latter two verbs obviously follow the "to" in the beginning, it is easy to reconstruct the to-infinitives, and so there would be no need to have "to" for the latter two. When the to-infinitive structures are put into other structures, however, the "to" remains as it does in the following example: b. This novel is not to be tossed lightly aside, but to be hurled with great force. - Dorothy Parker. 8. What requires "to" in the second infinitive would be the fact that the two infinitives "to be tossed" and "to be hurled" in parallelism are in the structure "not A but B," in which it is imperative to have the same structure in both A and B for the sake of comparison and contrast. Here is another thought-provoking exception: c. Bush urged Congress to deal fairly with Mexico and to not treat the Mexican truck industry in an unfair fashion.. The two infinitives are in the verbal structure of "urge someone to do" and both are objects of the same verb "urged." What is happening here is that the parallel structure of two to-infinitives are reserved and a "not," which typically precedes rather than follows a "to." The infinitive (as in "John told me not to take caffeine after 11 o'clock."), follows the "to" in the second infinitive structure. As a result, the parallel structure between the two infinitives are beautifully preserved, making the meaning clear by implying the two imperative sentences Mr. Bush, Sr. said (who would have said to Congress, "Deal fairly with Mexico and don't treat its truck industry in an unfair fashion"). If we had "not This sentence is as is cited in A Writer's Reference, Second Edition by Diana Hacker, p. 33. [Emphasis added] 8. -105-.

(14) -x."t- . ~1f.j . )(1t. 16~. 1 . 2 ~Hf-'l}. 2005.2. to treat the Mexican truck industry . . ." in the example c. above, it would mean that he did not tell Congress to treat it in an unfair fashion, which is not the case.. I -0-3. Phrase. Present participles and gerunds (-ing forms of verbs) with prepositions as well as prepositional phrases without any verbal derivatives are also put into parallelism. For example: a.. Water is obtained by chopping a hole in the thick winter ice that has formed on the lake, and scooping it up by bucket.. b. The number of people living in, or on the margins of, poverty increased throughout the 1980s.. In a., the gerunds "chopping" and "scooping" are both objectives of the preposition "by." Water can be attained there at least by one of these actions. In b., meanwhile, both the present participle construction "living in poverty" and the prepositional phrase "on the margins of poverty" modifies the preceding noun "people." What is interesting here is both noun modifiers are in parallelism taking "poverty" as their common object and are followed by a comma respectively without the second comma omitted, although it is clear that the "of" takes "poverty" as its object, which is because the preceding "in" as well takes "poverty" as its object. A gentle sense of parallelism requires the sentence to guarantee the same rank to both of the paralleled phrases wherever it is possible.. I -0-4. Clause. When two clauses, or embedded sentences in a sentence, are con-106-.

(15) Teaching Parallelism. Wake. nected by a conjunction or a semicolon, they are treated as parallel structures. a. John expected Jack to come, but Jack actually misunderstood the. day of appointment.. b. You should show up at the meeting, or, otherwise, I'll have to ask Nancy to do so. c. He felt no floor under his bare feet; he seemed to walk beneath the. palpable weight of the grim turning faces.. l). d. Microwave ovens have revamped not only the way we cook but also how we run, work, and plan our days.. 10. ["How we run,". "(how we) work," and "(how we) plan" are also in parallelism and share the common objective "our days," of which students often do not take notice - unless clearly pointed out by the teacher'] In each of the first three examples, two sentences are simply juxtaposed in a parallel manner, or in an equal status, while in d., each of the two noun clauses is an objective of the preceding verb "have revamped" and as such, they are in parallelism. As in the cases of nouns, adjectives, and adverbs, and verbs, the structure "not only A but (also) B" is likely to require the factors in the slots A and B to take similar structural features, which is exemplified by the fact that both "the way we cook" and "how we run, work, and plan our days" are noun clauses. One of the most interesting features in this category would be comparative structures, which usually includes two clauses in parallelism. Two clauses are mediated by a conjunction "than" or a conjunctive William Faulkner, "Barn Burning," Collected Stories (New York: Vintage, 1995), p. 4. 10 Ira Flatow, Wonders of the Natural World (Tokyo: Kinseido, 1988), p. 20. 9. -107-.

(16) structure "as ... as." Here are examples: a. John is as young as Jack is (young). [Which means both John and Jack are equally young.] b. Lucy is taller than Jane is (tall). [The second "is" is often omitted in addition to the fact that the second adjective "tall" typically would not be articulated and be deleted; so is it with a. above.] There comparative sentences in English are comparing and contrasting degrees of a particular item or feature belonging to two subjects: the age of two people in the example a. and the height of another pair in the example b. As a result, there are usually two implied sentences of the same structure in a comparative sentence. There would .be no common basis for comparison if it had two sentences with different structures. For example, it is probably logically difficult to have a sentence as follows: c. * Lucy wants to have a larger number of fruits than there are in the house. A more comprehensible sentence would be a revised one as follows: d. Lucy wants to have a larger number of fruits than she has now in the house.. Here "d." implies that she already has a certain amount of fruits in the house, and the two clauses "Lucy wants to have a larger number of fruits" and "she has (a certain number of fruits) now in the house" can be understood to be included in parallelism. Other interesting examples in the comparative can be given as follows: e. A whale is no more a fish than a horse is (a fish). [Which means -108-.

(17) Teaching Parallelism. Wake. that a whale's degree of being a fish is almost the same as a horse's degree of being a fish, slightly different from saying, "A whale is not a fish, as is the case with a horse," since a whale, as a living organism, shares common characteristics to a certain degree with a fish.] f. No sooner had Amy left the office than her boss noticed that she. forgot to bring the important file with her: it was on her desktop.. [Which means that the supervisor noticed Amy's mistake almost as soon as she had left the office. "Had" is inverted to the front of the subject "Amy" according to the movement of the adverbial "no sooner" to the beginning of the clause. "Than," not "when," follows, since a comparative, even negated by "no," precedes.] When a comparative of an adjective or adverb is negated by " no, " anmteresting thing happens: the difference in the degree of some features belonging to two particular occurrences is almost nullified. For example, if one says, "I have no more than twenty dollars,". 11. this means. that all he or she has is just as little as twenty dollars. According to the requirement of parallelism, however, we still have to have a clause before and after the coordinate conjunction "than." The last example in this category below includes a rhetorical question, in which another parallelism is to be found: g. "A language," says Michael Krauss of the University of Alaska,. "is as divine and mysterious as a living organism. Should we mourn the loss of a language less than the loss of a species?". 12. In this example, "than" is a preposition, not a conjunction, which is why we don't have to have a verb after "twenty dollars" and still without any implication of ellipsis. II. -109-.

(18) x'* . ~f,I\J . x1t. 16~. 1 . 2 irfif:i}. 2005.2. With the knowledge of parallelism, the reader would think that the implied structure after "than" is similar to that of the preceding clause "we should mourn the loss of a language." So after "than" it is inferred that there be "(we should mourn) the loss of a species," which makes sense here, as the loss of a language should be treated with as much care as that of a species according to the context. With the subjunctive of "should," the rhetorical question implies that "if you are sorry about the loss of a species, which is often seen, you should also worry about the loss of a language, which has to be equally cared about as if it were a living organism. " We can reconstruct the sentence and get the correct meaning by the context and by the principle of parallelism. It is clear that one of the most curious features of parallelism would. be found in comparative structures. Through the use of concrete examples, the teacher should invite students to deepen their understanding of parallelism and learn toward a more exciting approach to the structures and usage of the English language.. 1I. Ellipsis and Recovery As has been mentioned in the previous section, the principle of parallelism enables one to make ellipsis to avoid redundancy while it is still imperative that the parallel structures at least imply symmetry, regardless of the fact that it is hidden. In other words, parallelism is an aesthetic principle as well as a functional feature of the English language that makes possible omission and recovery. "Vanishing Cultures and Languages" (National Geographic, August 1999) as appears in Tajika, et aI., Reading Compass: An Interactive Approach to Reading English (Tokyo: Pierson Education, 2003), p. 8. [Emphasis added] 12. -110-.

(19) Teaching Parallelism. Wake. Here's an example of noun parallelism with ellipsis by which to show a recovery process: a. Most critics agree that Beethoven's later symphonies were more highly refined than Mozart's.. First, we can assume that there would be a similar structure, at least a clause, after "than" since we have a clause ("Beethoven's later symphonies [S'J were [V'J more highly refined" 13) before. Then, thinking about the missing parts, we will come up with "later symphonies," not just symphonies, after a possessive and the verb, "were," getting "Mozart's later symphonies were refined." The whole sentence compares Beethoven's later symphonies' refinement with that of Mozart's later symphonies. Students should be brought to understand that the comparison is not simply between Beethoven and Mozart; the issue in comparison is between Beethoven's later symphonies and Mozart's later symphonies. Here is another example in which implied parts are in a subordinate clause without a comparative: b. As in the West, couples in Hong Kong are increasingly enjoying the benefit of having children later in life, or not at all. This can also be thought of as a sentence in parallelism, the principle of which the missing parts are assumed to be recovered by taking a look at the main clause: the subject should be "couples" and the verb would be "are enjoying the benefit of having children later in life, or not at all." Another parallelism can be found in the end of the sentence "... I put an apostrophe after the subject-signifying "s" as well as after the verb-signifying "V" in order to suggest that they are in a subordinate clause, not elements in the main clause. 13. -111-.

(20) x,+ .. ~f,jIr. . x{t. 16~. 1 . 2 ~Hfi}. 2005.2. or not at all," which would be recuperated as " ... or not having children at all." So the whole sentence would be understood as saying, "As couples in the West are enjoying their lives postponing having children or not having them at all, couples in Hong Kong are increasingly enjoying the benefit of doing so," which, however, apparently looks and sounds awkward as a sentence in English. Parallelism works particularly in providing a simplistic sentence that sounds aesthetically better and looks stylistically better in a text written in English. By the same token, parallelism is thought to be working in a pair of sentences asserted by different speakers with a recovery process working implicitly in the respondent's mind to trace the same structure as that constructed by the addressor: c. A: I don't like to eat shiitake mushrooms unless forced to. B: Neither do I. Speaker B means to say "I don't like to eat shiitake mushrooms unless forced to, either," but with the structure in mind, he or she prefers to use a more simplistic expression. However, the speaker B employs the auxiliary "do," neither "am" nor "did," according to the principle of parallelism since the speaker A uses the verb "like." Therefore, it is suggested that the principle is working beyond a single speaker's statement affecting a respondent's response, for example: d. A: We are getting more and more interested in the Korean language these days. B: So am I. [Which indicates that speaker B is also getting more and more interested in Korean nowadays.] The response, "Me, too." would also be acceptable, but "So am I." may sound more intellectual because it is apparent that the respondent -112-.

(21) Teaching Parallelism. Wake. well understands the principle of parallelism. Lastly, here is another example taken from a short story by a major American author of the last century. The precise meaning of which most students in Japanese universities would have trouble in understating because of the author's use of ellipsis, or omission of words: e.. [The schooner] moved out into the open lake, carrying with it. everything that had made the mill a mill and Hortons Bay a town.. 14. It is rare to have two consecutive nouns in English sentences without. a preposition between them, but the example d. is an exception: "the mill" is juxtaposed with "a mill" ; "Hortons Bay" (a fictitious name of a town in the text) with "a town." Actually, it should be noticed that the parallelism here is between a relative clause "that (S'l) had made (V'l) the mill (0'1) a mill (C'l)" and "that (S'2) had made (V'2). Hortons Bay (0'2) a town (C'2)" with the verb "make" used in the structure "S+V+O+C." The omissions in the latter structure can be recovered by the principle of parallelism once it is noticed that the two ~lauses may be in parallelism. It takes time and effort on the part of the. teacher, but it is sure that students would finally understand the unstated structure by carefully clarifying the underlying rules and how they work in concrete sentences. Without this they will never fully understand the real nature of the English language.. Conclusion There are many hints to be found in the nature of parallelism to im"The End of Something" by Ernest Hemingway, The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway (New York: Scribner, 1938), p. 109. [Emphasis added] 14. -113-.

(22) x'* . ~{;Iir . Jt1t. 16~ 1 . 2 irHf~. 2005.2. prove the learners' competence in the English language. A mere awareness of parallelism on the part of the students as well as of the teacher would help each to write and speak more fluently and effectively as shown in the discussions above. A conscious understanding of parallelism would be especially important for the learners of English whose native language is Japanese, whose knowledge of systematic consciousness in listing items in parallelism is limited. In the Japanese language, each word is itemized in a list of things very frequently accompanied by a postpositional particle. By adding postpositional particles, sentences in Japanese texts do not have to be aware of the principles of parallelism. Speakers of the Japanese language, therefore, do not pay particular attention to parallelism in writing or in reading. It is important that they realize how in English, things are typically itemized in a list according to the principle of parallelism. While it can seem rather difficult to understand at first, I have suggested through concrete examples that parallelism can be taught by classifying various. examples. according. to. conventional grammatical. categories. I have done so because it is important for English teachers to understand how parallelism works and to introduce it to the learners whose native language is Japanese, for surely it will contribute to developing his or her general proficiency in English.. Works Cited. Faulkner, William. "Barn Burning." Collected Stories (New York: Vintage, 1995) - . Collected Stories (New York: Vintage, 1995) Flatow, Ira. Wonders of the Natural World (Tokyo: Kinseido, 1988) Hacker, Diana. A Writer's Reference, Second Edition (New York: Bedford, 1995) Hemingway, Ernest. "The End of Something." The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. -114-.

(23) Teaching Parallelism. Wake. (New York: Scribner, 1938) - . The Shart Staries af Ernest Hemingway (New York: Scribner, 1938) New, W.H. A Histary af Canadian Literature, Second Edition (Montreal: McGill-Queen UP, 2003) Quirk, Randolph, et at. eds. A Comprehensive Grammar af the English Language (London: Longman, 1989) Tajika, Hiroko, et at. Reading Campass: An Interactive Approach ta Reading English (Tokyo: Pierson Education, 2003). -115-.

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