※ 引述《MrDd (Yeah Panda)》之铭言：
: Rising inventories, when unaccompanied correspondingly by increases in sales, can lead to production cutbacks that would hamper economic growth.
: 请问要怎么判断 Rising inventories 的单复数呢?
: 1. rising 修饰 inventories => 复数
: 2. rising inventories 这件事 => 单数
: 句意来看两者都可以?
两者都可以。但是要怎么决定是哪个呢？要看剩余部分的句意。
让我们来看完整题目：
Rising inventories,/when unaccompanied correspondingly by increases in sales,
can lead/ to production cutbacks that would hamper economic growth.
A)When unaccompanied correspondingly by increases in sales, can lead
B)When not accompanied by corresponding increases in sales, possibly leads
E) If not accompanied by corresponding increases in sales, can lead
句意上，看到corresponding（相应的、一致的），就知道两边应该要有性质上的对应
所以若像这三个选项写的是
相应的increases in sales（销售额的增加，重点在“增加”这个动作）
那另一边的Rising inventories就应该当做一件事情的动名词（存货的提升）
这样才是动作对应动作（相应的）
D)If not accompanied by correspondingly increased sales, possibly leads
而若像是这个选项，increased sales（增加的销售额重点在“销售额”）
那么另一边的Rising inventories我们就要视为“上升的存货”
这样才是销售额对应存货（相应的）
所以这个选项会删掉，除了靠possibly改变句意外，
还可以靠先判断出主词Rising inventories是复数，排除leads。
C)When they were unaccompanied by corresponding sales increases, can lead
这个选项不讨论，没有这样用的。
另外，如果想听我对这题的完整诠释，这边可以参考：
http://goo.gl/dUAwqG
Dustin