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I saw the below sentence from LSAT and I can't parse out the grammar of the first clause.

Fur color is in large measure hereditary, for black cats are more likely than others to have black kittens.

According to the MW dictionary, "hereditary" is an adjective; how come an adjective can follow a noun and modifies it at the same time?

Please help explain this sentence.

1 Answer 1

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Let's divide this sentence up a little.

Fur colour is hereditary

This is the same as saying

The cat is black

We can add an adverb in front of an adjective:

Fur colour is usually hereditary

We can make an adverb phrase in various ways: one way is to start with a preposition

under normal circumstances
to some extent
from my perspective
in large measure

So, we can put this adverb phrase into your sentence

Fur colour is in large measure hereditary

in large measure is an adverbal phrase of degree, and is a somewhat formal way of saying to a great extent... similar to mostly.

Check the examples in the Cambridge Dictionary for measure with the noun meaning amount.

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