Subject Verb Agrrement in "Not only But also"...

[direstraits007]

Can anyone please explain which of the below usage is correct and why ?

A will not only do X but also have the ability to do Y.

OR

A will not only do X but also has the ability to do Y.

Thanks!

GeeMate.

[mikrodj]

the first one is more parallel

A will not only do X but also (will) have the ability to do Y.

In this sentence will is understood; therefore both parts are in future form.

OR

A will not only do X but also has the ability to do Y.

here you have the first part in future and the second in present. Not only X but also Y requires parallelism between X and Y

[RonPurewal]

Can anyone please explain which of the below usage is correct and why ?

A will not only do X but also have the ability to do Y.

OR

A will not only do X but also has the ability to do Y.

Thanks!

GeeMate.

actually, the first of these is perfectly fine, provided that you mean the following two things:
* A will do X;
* A will have the ability to do Y (but will not necessarily do Y).

the use of parallelism with TWO-PART SIGNALS, such as not only... but also, is much easier than the use of parallelism with only one signal (such as "and" or "or").
basically, you just do the following:
* look at the EXACT WORDS that follow the first signal (in this case, "not only")
* look at the EXACT WORDS that follow the second signal (in this case, "but also")
* check the following:
1) are the structures grammatically parallel?
2) does each of the structures were with the words that come before "not only"?

if the answers to both 1) and 2) are "yes", then, unless the sentence is unreadable or ambiguous for some other reason, you've got yourself an example of proper parallelism.

in the case of the first example above:
A will
not only do X
but also have the ability to do Y
.

1) are the boldface constructions parallel?
--- sure they are; they're both future tense verbs, without the "will" in front.

2) do they make sense with the initial words?
let's try:
A will do X
A will have the ability to do Y

yep, this works. proper parallelism.


--

exercises for the reader:

(a)
use the same two criteria to prove that the second sentence in the original post is wrong.

(b)
use the same two criteria to prove that, if you switch "not only" and "will" in the second sentence -- i.e., "A not only will do X" -- then you also wind up with proper parallelism.