as strong as are ...

[wotcha]

The following sentence is extracted from National Uni Entrance Exam in Korea.


'This emotional and sensory appeal of soft cookies is apparently at least as strong as are the physical cravings that the product satisfies.'


If we analyze the sentence, it can consist of three major parts namely

Subject : 'This emotional and sensory appeal of soft cookies

Verb : is

and

Complement : apparently (at least) as strong as are the physical cravings that the product satisfies'



What I'm wondering about is why there is 'are' in the sentence.


????



Thx.

[5jj]

The appeal is as strong as the cookies are.

[philo2009]

This kind of inversion is very formal/literary. Conversationally, the verb 'are' here would probably be omitted altogether.

[Raymott]

I'd call "at least as strong as" a comparative conjunction.
The second verb can not always be omitted. If the second verb is different, it needs to be there.
"[ I can swim ] at least as fast as [ you can walk.]
"I can swim as fast as you" - This means "I can swim as fast as you can swim".

[englishhobby]

So, if it's inversion, will it be correct to put are at the end of the sentence to make the word order normal?

[5jj]

We can do this, but it's a little clumsy:

This emotional and sensory appeal of soft cookies is apparently at least as strong as the physical cravings that the product satisfies are.

[elizia]

Seems to me both ways are rather clumsy... :-/

I tend to look at things like this by first simplifying to a very basic example, say:

The dog is as black as are the rabbits.
The dog is as black as the rabbits are.

I don't know about you, but to me the second sounds more natural, and easier to follow (since "as are" is also a completely different structure).

That being said, in wotcha's cookie example the second part of the sentence is too long to make an "are" at the end easily understandable. Getting rid of the "are" altogether would solve matters - as would adding a comma:

"This emotional and sensory appeal of soft cookies is apparently at least as strong, as are the physical cravings that the product satisfies."

...in which case you'd need to have a sentence before this that talks about something else that is strong (the flavour?) - then you'd basically be saying: The flavour is strong. The emotional appeal is just as strong, and the same goes for the cravings.

[englishhobby]

Elizia, thank you for such a detailed and clear answer.