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Is the following sentence grammatically correct?

An apple is red and has a spherical shape.

In comparison, I'm pretty sure that the following sentences are correct:

  1. An apple is red and green.
  2. An apple has a spherical shape and smells like fish.
tchrist
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ashpool
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  • Why do you think it's ungrammatical? – Peter Shor Oct 04 '14 at 01:28
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    @PeterShor I think ashpool might wonder if it is or not and why because Bob was wiped down with baby oil and happy doesn't work too well. So when the head of the Verb Phrase is BE, the lower constituents don't seem to be able to co-ordinate if the BEs are different types of BE - or maybe if the co-ordinates are different types of phrase ... Those kinds of problems make co-ordination very confusing .. I think ... – Araucaria - Him Oct 04 '14 at 02:09
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    This is an example of *Conjunction Reduction*. The base sentence is An apple is red and an apple has a spherical shape. This is two sentences with indefinite generic subject noun phrase an apple and different verb phrases is red and has a spherical shape. They're both grammatical, so their conjunction is too. Then the generic subject an apple gets deleted because it's identical in both clauses. And that's all. The verb phrases are different, so they stay. Simple. – John Lawler Oct 04 '14 at 02:18
  • Why do you think has isn't a form of 'be?' It is. – Kris Oct 04 '14 at 05:21
  • Even otherwise, the two kinds of verb are independent of each other and do not need to belong to the same class. There's no such restriction. – Kris Oct 04 '14 at 05:23
  • @Kris, has isn't a form of be. Was it a typo, or were you making a subtle joke? – TonyK Sep 26 '16 at 19:09

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This is an example of Conjunction Reduction. The base sentence is An apple is red and an apple has a spherical shape. This is two sentences with indefinite generic subject noun phrase an apple and different verb phrases is red and has a spherical shape. They're both grammatical, so their conjunction is too. Then the generic subject an apple gets deleted because it's identical in both clauses. And that's all. The verb phrases are different, so they stay. Simple. – John Lawler

Community
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Helmar
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  • But it's not that simple. It doesn't explain why Araucaria's example Bob was wiped down with baby oil and happy is wrong. – TonyK Sep 26 '16 at 19:11
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    True, but I think that was not (at all) the OP's question. – Kris Sep 30 '16 at 08:28