Sentence Meaning – Who is a Member of FINRA, SIPC?

sentence-meaning

I have read a sentence in a material:

TD Ameritrade Clearing, Inc. is the contracted custodian and clearing firm of TD Ameritrade Hong Kong Ltd. for U.S. securities markets and is a member of FINRA, SIPC.

Who is the member of FINRA, SIPC?
TD Ameritrade Clearing, Inc. is a member of FINRA, SIPC,or TD Ameritrade Hong Kong Ltd is a member of FINRA, SIPC ?

Best Answer

You could simplify your sentence by replacing the complicated names with letters:

X [TD Ameritrade Clearing, Inc.] is the contracted custodian and clearing firm of Y [TD Ameritrade Hong Kong Ltd. for U.S. securities markets] and is a member of Z [FINRA, SIPC].

i.e.

X is the contracted custodian and clearing firm of Y (1) and is a member of Z (2).

This is a sentence formed of two independent clauses sharing the same subject. Clause (1) is connected to clause (2) by the coordinating conjunction and. Wikipedia explains about the omissibility of the subject in such cases:

One criterion for identifying a subject in various languages is the possibility of its omission in coordinated sentences such as the following:

  • The man hit the woman and [the man] came here.

So the fact the subject X was omitted in the clause (2) is the criterion which proves that X is the subject of clause (2). Otherwise a different subject should have been expressed. Fulfilling the function of prepositional object within the predicate of clause (1), Y cannot possibly be the subject of (2), without it being replaced by a pronoun.

TheEnglishbureau explains that

There are certain situations where it’s perfectly fine in English to leave out the subject. Whenever you use a sentence where the subject or the subject with an auxiliary is repeated then this can be left out after the conjunctions: and, but, or and then.

  • I went into the kitchen and [I] made a cup of tea.

Guinlist calls it ellipsis:

The rule for ellipsis with these two conjunction types is that when two verbs have the same subject, coordinating conjunctions allow the second subject mention to be omitted but subordinating ones do not.

  • Water evaporates and … forms clouds.

So without omitting the subject in (2) your sentence would be:

X is the contracted custodian and clearing firm of Y (1) and X is a member of Z (2).

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