Just as painted designs on Greek pots may seem today to be purely decorative, whereas in fact they were carefully and precisely worked out so that at the time, their meaning was clear, so it is with Chinese pots.
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You have mislead yourself with a typo: there is no comma after "so that at the time." There are four clauses in the sentence, and each has a subject. Two of the subordinate clauses are the "just as" one and the "whereas" one. "Just as ... so it is" is a standard locution making a contrast (here between Greek and Chinese pots). "Whereas" can state a fact (here about the care and precision of the work) that leads to a following conclusion, but in this sentence it provides another contrast with a preceding statement (here the seeming decorative nature of the pots).– deadratCommented Jan 6, 2016 at 17:02
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Can you spot the dependent clauses and the independent clause now? If you can do that, the subjects should be evident. It's a complicated sentence.– deadratCommented Jan 6, 2016 at 17:04
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Thank you, It seems a little understandable now but still vague in some parts. Does "as" at the beginning of the sentence mean "similar to"? this is my understanding,is it right? Although painted designs on Greek pots seem decorative, they were worked out in such a way that their meaning was clear and Painted designs on Chinese pots are very similar to the Greek ones. if i'm wrong, correct me please.– AnfiCommented Jan 6, 2016 at 19:30
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1Yes, you've got it right: "just as X, so is/does Y" means that whatever X is like, Y is also the same. "(Just as) Britons love cricket, (so do) Americans love baseball": The British love their cricket; Americans feel the same way about baseball. (Just as) The designs on Greek pots look to us to be mere decorations but they have precise meanings. (So does) Chinese pottery have meaningful patterns that only seem to be just decorative.– deadratCommented Jan 7, 2016 at 2:13
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1"this fact is very right to the Chinese ones" -- Better: "this fact is very close to" or "this fact is applicable to"– deadratCommented Jan 7, 2016 at 2:14
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1 Answer
As deadrat pointed out, punctuation could be better:
Just as painted designs on Greek pots may seem today to be purely decorative, whereas in fact they were carefully and precisely worked out so that at the time their meaning was clear, so it is with Chinese pots.
Consider it this way:
[Just as painted designs on Greek pots may seem today to be purely decorative, whereas in fact they were carefully and precisely worked out so that at the time their meaning was clear], [so it is with Chinese pots.]
What you have here is a "Just as... so it is..." construction. Here you can see an example of this from the Corinthians:
a. "Just as a body has many parts, so it is with Christ" [abridged for clarity]
"As" is a synonym for "like". The author is comparing two situations and stating that they are somehow the same:
A body has many parts, and Christ does too.
Roughly, whatever is said about the first item, it also applies to the second. In (a), the first item is "a body" and the second is "Christ". In your sentence, the first item is "Greek pots" (or the designs on Greek pots), and the second is "Chinese pots" (or the designs on them).
"So that" is also a fixed expression meaning "in order to" or "that way". Consider:
b. I'll do it, so that you don't have to (= I'll do it. That way, you won't have to.)
So the author is saying that Greek pots were carefully painted in order to make their meaning clear. "At that time" only means "then" or "back then". "Whereas" is a conjunction expressing opposition. It can be replaced with "but". So you have:
Painted designs on Greek pots may seem just decorative today, but they were carefully worked out so that (at the time) their meaning was clear. The same is true with Chinese pots (their designs were also meaningful in their time, although they may look merely decorative nowadays).
You basically have two clauses, the first one with three clauses within it:
A:[(1Just as painted designs on Greek pots may seem today to be purely decorative1), (2whereas in fact they were carefully and precisely worked out2) (3so that at the time their meaning was clear3)], B:[so it is with Chinese pots.]
- The subject of a is the Noun Phrase "painted designs on Greek pots", being "designs" the most important word (or head).
- The subject of 1 is the same as in a ("painted designs on Greek pots").
- The subject of 2 is the pronoun "they", whose antecedent is "painted designs on Greek pots".
- The subject of 3 is the Noun Phrase "their meaning", whose head is "meaning". "Their" is a possessive determiner referring to "designs".
- The subject of b is the pronoun "it" (whose antecedent can be considered a).
