Because natural gas is composed mostly of methane, a simple hydroc arbon, vehicles powered by natural gas emit [U][/U]-
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E.less of certain pollutants than those burning gasoline or diesel fuel.
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答案为E,给出的解释为：比较的是2种类型的vehicle。请问:
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1.答案改为"less of certain pollutants than do those burning gasoline or diesel fuel."可不可以？为什么？
HIGH-GMAT中另一题，正确答案为：
The United States government employs a much larger proportion of women in trade negotiations than does any other government.
这里的“does any other government”是否可以用“any other government”代替？为什么？
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2.这种“than比较”题型应该如何确定比较的对象？
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3.关于为什么用less来修饰可数名词pollutants，给出的解释为：“更正规的用法是用fewer，但用less现在在国外越来越普遍了”。感觉很搞笑，有没有更有说服力的理由？
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谢谢！作者: oddyuibe 时间: 2003-4-11 18:48
to liushiyou
我觉得如果加上do的话，也是可以的，在语义明确的情况下，一般这种助动词好像是可以省略的（大家讨论）
此外，这里的less是用作名词，表示较少的意思，less of 修饰pollutants.
个人观点，仅供参考~作者: dl7801 时间: 2003-4-11 22:25
In the sentence "....a simple hydroc arbon, vehicles powered by natural gas emit less of certain pollutants than those burning gasoline or diesel fuel",actually, "less" modifys the verb "emit" rather than the noun "polluants".
Just remember whenever you see such phrase as "noun. + less/more+of +verb." in a sentence, the "less/more" must modify the verb. instead of the noun.
This principle also accounts for the reason that why we don't need to use an auxiliary verb such as "do" after "than" here, because the sentence makes a comparison between two verbs, "emit more or emit less", instead of two subjects.This kind of comparison has the same meaning and effect as does the comparison between the subjects.
another instance:
Marry sings better than anyone else in her class.
As we know, we must put an auxiliary verb in the clause after "than" when we make comparison between two subjects of the clauses. The second question that you posted here, which compares the first subject "The United States government " with the other subject "any other government", is the representational example for this rule.
