My question is whether the second was is necessary or optional, and why?
As my condition stabilized, I was transferred to a different wing of the Hospital, and was gradually weaned off of the medication.
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2Necessary here, no. Preferable? I'd say so. With a shorter gap ('I was refused entry and told to go home') I'd say omission of the second 'was' is normally preferable. But this can make it more difficult to discern the structure with long separations. Sometimes, omission is unacceptable because it would give rise to ambiguity: 'He was bereaved in his twenties and left the house'.– Edwin AshworthCommented Jan 23, 2015 at 19:18
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1It's also "weaned off the medication", not "weaned off of"– MartinCommented Jan 23, 2015 at 19:23
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2Results of search for "conjunction reduction" here.– John LawlerCommented Jan 23, 2015 at 19:27
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1@Martin - "weaned of of" sounds better in certain circumstances to me (I'm a doc). It is also common enough in journal (professional) articles: "completely weaned off of immunosuppression", "being weaned off of prednisone", "weaned off of CPB", "weaned off of ventilation", "weaned off of milrinone", etc. It's a bit more idiomatic, but to correct someone so dogmatically is unnecessary.– anongoodnurseCommented Jan 23, 2015 at 19:39
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1@JohnLawler cite your other answer as an answer rather than a comment, and I will mark this issue resolved. Thank you all for your input!– b_archerCommented Jan 24, 2015 at 2:02
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1 Answer
It's optional.
The general rule for "and" is that the two things coordinated must share all relevant grammatical properties, and the new constituent created has all those shared properties. For the version without "was", we need to compare the properties of "transferred to a different wing of the hospital" and "gradually weaned off of the medication", then we see whether a constituent with all those properties can be put after "was". It can.
For the version with two "was"s, we need to do the similar analysis of the two "was" phrases to find whether the phrase that has all the shared properties (a predicate phrase with "was") is one that can be combined with the subject "I" to make a sentence. And it can.
