OG 74 - A 1972 agreement between Canada and the United States

wilhelmzhou · 发表于 2014-3-27 17:17:31

OG 74: A 1972 agreement between Canada and the United States reduced the amount of phosphates that municipalities had been allowed to dump into the Great Lakes.
(A) reduced the amount of phosphates that municipalities had been allowed to dump
(B) reduced the phosphate amount that municipalities had been dumping
(C) reduces the phosphate amount municipalities have been allowed to dump
(D) reduced the amount of phosphates that municipalities are allowed to dump (正确答案)
(E) reduces the amount of phosphates allowed for dumping by municipalities

老题新问（没找到满意的答案，谢谢大家帮忙）

OG 解释：Since the dumping continued after the date of the agreement, the past perfect verb bad been allowed should instead be the present are allowed (if the agreement remained in effect when the sentence was written) or the past were allowed (if the agreement was no longer in effect when the sentence was written).

网上的大部分解释：since municipalities is still allowed to dump so far, so we choose "are"

我的疑问：

这里are 或 had been 不是用来表明allow (instead of dumping) 这个动作发生的时间吗？In other word, it is an option regarding "reduce the allowed amount". 选项A表明以前有个agreement 给出了高的amount, 而1972年降低了allowed amount。

我自己的翻译－１９７２年的美加协议降低了周边城市被许可的向五大湖倾倒磷酸盐的数量。如果“降低”是与“倾倒”联系的，那么“降低”就应该用现在完成时。

wyw1018 · 发表于 2014-3-27 21:53:21

可能是中文和英文的语义差别，中文翻译过来是减少了被允许的倾倒量，而英文的that限定句是修饰phosphates不是amount，所以如果用had been说明phosphates在reduced的时候之前都已经不允许被倾倒，那又何来减少amount。

wilhelmzhou · 发表于 2014-3-28 15:13:42

wyw1018 发表于 2014-3-27 21:53
可能是中文和英文的语义差别，中文翻译过来是减少了被允许的倾倒量，而英文的that限定句是修饰phosphates不 ...

谢谢, 不过我觉得你的答案有两个问题：

1）that 限定的应该是amount 吧。比如说the amount of apples is ...., 我们不用are 是因为subject 是amount instead of “apples‘。Could this principle be applied to the sentence?
2) The option A does not mean that it forbids dumping but the bar has been raised (apply a more restrict standard)

iris_hsu33 · 发表于 2015-2-26 21:29:40

我也弄不懂这题。
看到两个老外的解释：
It should be D. You cannot reduce the amount of phosphates that 'had been allowed' because that dumping has already been done. You can only reduce the amount that can be dumped from now on. Only D makes it clear.

另一个说：
it should be A

"had been" means it reduced the amount that was allowed before 1972
"are" means amount is still same as that reduced in 1972
But there might be further reduction after 1972. So "had been" is correct

Fisher-GF · 发表于 2015-9-1 16:28:10

也就纠结过这个问题，后来仔细一想，agreement应该只能制约之后发生的事儿，之前的事儿已经管不了了。所以就是现在如果agreement还有效就用are，如果agreement已经没用了就用were吧。个人看法。

OG 74 - A 1972 agreement between Canada and the United States

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