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English Language
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Analyze the following advanced sentence for syntactic precision, idiom usage, prepositional collocation, and grammatical agreement: "Despite being cognizant of the impending fiscal audit, neither the chief executive nor her subordinate managers was willing to complying with the rigorous transparency mandates stipulated by the regulatory board." Identify which of the underlined segments contains a grammatical error according to standard English syntax.
✓ Correct! Well done.
✗ Not quite — the correct answer is highlighted above.
Detailed Explanation
The error lies in segment C: 'complying with' should be 'comply'. The modal verb or auxiliary structure requires the bare infinitive or simple form after 'willing to' (e.g., 'willing to comply'). In English grammar, adjectives or expressions like 'willing' are followed directly by the to-infinitive ($to + ext{verb}$). For further reading on syntactic constraints and auxiliary complements, consult the Wikipedia Reference. Additionally, regarding subject-verb agreement (segment B), when subjects are connected by 'neither... nor', the verb agrees with the nearer subject ('subordinate managers', which is plural; however, standard grammar rules dictate that when singular and plural subjects are joined by correlative conjunctions, the verb should ideally agree with the closer subject, making 'were' more accurate here, but segment C contains a definitive morphological violation of the infinitive complement).
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