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is "provides" correct? And what about commas before or after "as well as" in this sentence:

  • Narrated in the third person omniscient, the narrator depicts a panoramic view of the natural landscape as well as provides an objective view of the main character’s thoughts.
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  • Sounds like regular literary review type language to me. In such language, as it is given to run-on sentences, commas are used more sparingly than in regular English. They have to be due to the length of the sentences.
    – developerwjk
    Commented Jun 12, 2017 at 22:59
  • In other words, you might think it needs a comma on "landscape[,] as well as provides" but that would pair the verb with "Narrated in the third person omniscient" rather than "the narrator depicts a panoramic view" and make it more clunky.
    – developerwjk
    Commented Jun 12, 2017 at 23:02
  • Here's my improvement of the sentence. "In the third person omniscient, the narrator depicts both a panoramic view of the natural landscape and provides an objective view of the main character's thoughts." Or, howzzabout: "The narrator, in the third person omniscient, depicts both . . . and provides . . .." Ka-ching! A savings of two words!
    – rhetorician
    Commented Sep 13, 2017 at 2:15
  • This question is about another aspect of "as well as", but it indicates a comma before but not after (this makes sense, as "as well as" functions as a conjunction rather than as an optional part of the sentence). english.stackexchange.com/questions/456637/…
    – Stuart F
    Commented Apr 27, 2021 at 14:57
  • See also chappo's answer at verbs after 'as well as' – is this Merriam-Webster example wrong?
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Dec 23, 2021 at 14:52

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No, provides is not correct.

A comma before as well as would be useful but not mandatory.

Narrated in the third person omniscient, the narrator depicts a panoramic view of the natural landscape as well as providing an objective view of the main character’s thoughts.

FYI, Narrated (anything), the narrator (anything) might be grammatically defensible but it's stylistically anathema.

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  • Robbie Goodwin, would you please provide any recommendations to improve the sentence, given that you described it as "stylistically anathema".
    – ali
    Commented Jun 15, 2017 at 13:54
  • Ali, you do need to do your own homework. Please look again at Narrated (anything), the narrator (anything) and consider among those five words, which might be causing the problem… particularly since the problem was in no way affected by anything I changed
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Commented Jun 15, 2017 at 18:49
  • can I use "Irving" instead of "the narrator"?
    – ali
    Commented Jun 15, 2017 at 19:55
  • Ali, that would help and still you'd need to change a lot more… Try parsing the whole passage and see how many subjects you thnk there are, please?
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Commented Jun 16, 2017 at 19:08
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    No matter whether you say “the narrator” or “Irving”, it’s still a dangling modifier. Irving is not narrated in any person—the story is.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Feb 10, 2018 at 12:07
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Parse it this way:
"(Narrated in the third person omniscient,)
(the narrator depicts)
(a panoramic view of the natural landscape)
(as well as provides)
(an objective view of the main character’s thoughts.)".

HTH.

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