[Grammar] Parallel structure

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Rameen

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Hi,

"Maximum number of students travel by bus whereas/and minimum by train."
"Highest number of people liked the apple while/and lowest the oranges"

Can I use the above grammatical structure to combine two sentences of these kinds?

Thanks!
 

emsr2d2

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Hi,

"Maximum number of students travel by bus whereas/and minimum by train."
"Highest number of people liked the apple while/and lowest the oranges"

Can I use the above grammatical structure to combine two sentences of these kinds?

Thanks!

The majority of students travel by bus and the minority by train.
The majority of people liked the apple and the minority the orange.
 

Rameen

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The majority of students travel by bus and the minority by train.
The majority of people liked the apple and the minority the orange.

Could you, kindly, explain the relevant grammar rule used here?
Any link to that will be appreciable for me too.
 

emsr2d2

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Could you, kindly, explain the relevant grammar rule used here?
Any link to that will be appreciable for me too.

I'm not sure what "grammar rule" you're looking for. The main thing I did was replace your "The maximum number of people" (not what we say) with "the majority" (and "the minimum number of people" with "the minority").
 

Rameen

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I'm not sure what "grammar rule" you're looking for. The main thing I did was replace your "The maximum number of people" (not what we say) with "the majority" (and "the minimum number of people" with "the minority").

Actually, I want to ask why 'of student' and 'travel' were omitted from the second clause of the following sentence:
"The majority of students travel by bus and the minority by train"
 

charliedeut

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Actually, I want to ask why 'of student' and 'travel' were omitted from the second clause of the following sentence:
"The majority of students travel by bus and the minority by train"

They have been omitted because you are speaking of the same students. You then divide them in two groups: the majority and the minority. Since both are part of the total number of students and both groups do the same (that is, you are neither changing the subject nor the verb), you can omit them and the sentence still makes sense.
 

Rameen

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They have been omitted because you are speaking of the same students. You then divide them in two groups: the majority and the minority. Since both are part of the total number of students and both groups do the same (that is, you are neither changing the subject nor the verb), you can omit them and the sentence still makes sense.

Thanks for your nice explanation. As like always, I was curious to know the relevant grammatical rule, I searched and ,to the best of my knowledge, found an explanation called "Elliptical construction". Moreover, it is the 'Gapping' type of Elliptical construction that caused omission of noun, verb or phrase in my sample sentences.
 
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