[求助]一个关于given的问题 feifei135-6

Questions 5-6

Sales manager: Last year the total number of meals sold in our company restaurants was much higher than it was the year before. Obviously consumers find our meals desirable.

Accountant: If you look at individual restaurants, however, you find that the number of meals sold actually decreased substantially at every one of our restaurants that was in operation both last year and the year before. The desirability of our meals to consumers has clearly decreased, given that this group of restaurants---the only ones for which we have sales figures that permit a comparison between last year and the year before---demonstrates a trend toward fewer sales.

NN的解释如下：

Sales Manager:  the total number of meals sold last year much higher à  consumers desire our meals

Accountant: the number of meals sold by every restaurants operating these two years actually decreased last year from the year before （事实）à the desirability of our meals has decreased ( conclusion) à  a trend toward fewer sales (conclusion)

NN认为 desireability 导致了 fewer sales。可是我认为原文说的

The desirability of our meals to consumers has clearly decreased, given that this group of restaurants---the only ones for which we have sales figures that permit a comparison between last year and the year before---demonstrates a trend toward fewer sales.

中的given后面的内容应该是原因，而前面的内容才是结果。也就是说是 ACCOUNTANT 是根据 trend toward fewer sales，而得出desirability decreased的结论。

觉得弄清因果挺重要的，特别是做他因weaken的时候，请大家帮我看看！！！

同问，顶！

在做语法的时候，碰到provided that，大家讨论的结果似乎说是类似only if引导必要条件

这里的given that是和provided that同样的作用么？

楼主是对的。

given that & provided that不可混用，given that是接一个事实，而provided that是接一个虚拟