Questions Questions

1. “After a confused silence, the speaker attempted a weak reply only to halt midway to confer with his assistant and finally to admit that he had made a mistake.” 1. “After a confused silence, the speaker attempted a weak reply only to halt midway to confer with his assistant and finally to admit that he had made a mistake.”

I’m not a grammar expert, but to me “to confer with his assistant” indicates purpose and “and finally to admit…” indicates result.

1. “After a confused silence, the speaker attempted a weak reply only to halt midway to. He conferred with his assistant, and finally had to admit that he had made a mistake. 1. “After a confused silence, the speaker attempted a weak reply only to halt midway. He conferred with his assistant, and finally had to admit that he had made a mistake.

This sentence is hard to understand for a native speaker as well. It looks like a run-on sentence to me. My guess is the ambiguity / confusion is because the writer is trying to convey too many ideas in the same sentence. It would be more natural to break up the sentence, which I have done in my correction.

TAre the two infinitive phrases after “midway”are used to show purpose or indicate result? Are the two infinitive phrases after “midway” used to show purpose or indicate result?

The two infinitive phrases after “midway”are used to show purpose or indicate result? The two infinitive phrases after “midway”are used to show purpose or indicate result?

The first phrase after midway is not formed correctly. "to confer his assistant" is missing the word with. "To confer" is a verb here, and the second part is the prepositional phrase describing who he is conferring with, "his assistant." This sentence has multiple predicates that are attempting to look like prepositional phrases. The other one is "finally to admit that he had made a mistake." This looks like it is missing a verb at the front to describe tense. My guess is "had." You could write "The speaker attempted a weak reply, conferred with his assistant, and finally had to admit that he had made a mistake" and this would not be a run-on sentence. You can easily break it into 3 sentences by attaching the subject, which appears once ("The speaker") to each of the 3 predicates of the sentence. These predicates are all connected to each other using "and", and all use the same structure. That is how you know that the complex sentence is formed properly and can express all 3 ideas together. (1) "The speaker" + "attempted a weak reply" (2) "The speaker" + "conferred with his assistant" (3) "The speaker" + "finally had to admit that he had made a mistake" When you add "only to halt midway," it doesn't follow the same structural pattern of the other sentence fragments. You can't write "The speaker" + "only to halt midway" like you could with the other clauses. You would attach this fragment to the first predicate instead. "The speaker" + "attempted a weak reply" + "only to halt midway" This is a complete sentence, but now it doesn't have the same structure as the second and third predicates anymore. That's why it is a run-on sentence. Separate the sentence where the structural pattern changes, and you get 2 properly formed sentences as a result.

TAre the two infinitive phrases after “midway”are used to show purpose or indicate result? Are the two infinitive phrases after “midway” used to show purpose or indicate result?

2. What’s the difference between “no…less than” and “ not… less than”? 2. What’s the difference between “no…less than” and “ not… less than”?

It depends on the context. Can you provide some example sentences to show the context you have in mind?

2. What’s the difference between “no…less than” and “ not… less than”? 2. What’s the difference between “no…less than” and “ not… less than”?

Not sure what you mean here, sorry. :x Can you use both phrases in an example sentence?

2. What’s the difference between “no…less than” and “ not… less than”? 2. What’s the difference between “no…less than” and “ not… less than”?

You already got some great answers to your first question, so I'll try to tackle this one. It might help to think of "no less" as the opposite of "no more". When you say "there's no more bread", you mean "there is no bread anymore", not "there isn't more bread". This style of phrasing can also be seen in "no longer" and "no sooner". Eg. "I will be his slave no longer." "No longer shall I let him make a fool of me." "No sooner had she said his name than he arrived." "No less", as in "Mary is no less hard-working than her sister", means the same as "not any less" (eg. "Mary is not any less hard-working than her sister"). But if you say "Mary is not less hard-working than her sister", it sounds like you're disagreeing with someone who said the opposite.