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Her playing was Romantic, but it was at least as close in spirit to the style of playing intended by composers of the Baroque and Classical eras, as have been the more exacting but less emotionally resonant interpretations of most harpsichordists since Landowska.

I feel this sentence very confusing. It has two "as". Is it the as..as comparison structure, like "My girlfriend is as beautiful as your girlfriend"?

If it is "as...as" structure, what is the part after the second as, is it a clause or what?

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  • Qiqi, are you asking us homework questions? It's very odd for an OP to ask about two complex but well structured sentences in a row. I need to ask because answering your homework questions is off-topic for the site.
    – JBH
    Commented Nov 29, 2017 at 6:48
  • @JBH If you look at my stackoverflow profile, I'm working at a professional software engineer. There's no need for me to do English homework.
    – Gqqnbig
    Commented Nov 29, 2017 at 6:53
  • Please forgive me. You're asking questions that look very much like homework questions.
    – JBH
    Commented Nov 29, 2017 at 7:46
  • Even if the questions look like homework, they actually follow the rules of the community. Op presented the situation, explained his point of view and his own efforts to understand, and he only asks for confirmation / rejection / details. There are many questions here (ELL) which are declared "homework" from the start by their respective OPs.
    – virolino
    Commented Feb 27, 2019 at 9:59

1 Answer 1

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Consider this comparison:

He is as {strong} as {an ox} [is strong]

Now consider this comparison:

Her playing was as {close in spirit to the Baroque} as {the interpretations of most harpsichordists since Landowska} [are close in spirit to the Baroque].

The original uses verb-subject order in the second comparand. We can restate in subject verb order:

... as the more exacting but less emotionally resonant interpretations of most harpsichordists since Landowska have been.

The subject of the clause is the more exacting but less emotionally resonant interpretations of most harpsichordists since Landowska.

The verb-subject order here is a stylistic choice. You won't often find such stylistic choices in articles about football or rugby, say, where the sentences tend to use short subjects and stick to subject-verb order. This style tends to appear in pieces about art, music, history, etc.

The Berlin Philharmonic has recorded all of Beethoven's symphonies, as has the Cleveland Orchestra.

Hulk Hogan struck his opponent on the head with a folding chair, as have done many other professional wrestlers to their opponents. unlikely

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