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I am in limbo about the syntax of a certain sentence I am formulating. To me, the following sentence (with the alternative word choice combinations) is intelligible and grammatical; however, when I did a corpus search, to my surprise, only a handful of search results came out, which made me a bit doubtful. Can you guys tell me how it reads to you?

They cautioned (advised) researchers to acknowledge (recognize) that...

At first, I thought the reason for the low search result was because the verb caution is usually followed by a negative action (not to). But then, why there also came low search results for the verb advise?

Thank you!

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  • Preliminary question: what makes you think that "caution" is an auxiliary verb?
    – BillJ
    Commented Oct 21, 2020 at 9:18
  • No, it is not an auxiliary verb.
    – Liber
    Commented Oct 21, 2020 at 10:37
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    Why do you place value on a corpus search for a whole phrase? The only result Google finds for "Can you guys tell me how it reads to you" is this question, but that doesn't make the sentence wrong! Having said that, I would say that advised sounds more natural, probably because – as you say – cautioned against is the more common usage for cautioned..
    – TripeHound
    Commented Oct 21, 2020 at 13:46
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    If you want a worthwhile answer to your question, you need to provide the full sentence and not just the fragment that immediately interests you. You also need to provide a wider context. For example, the reason for the word 'caution' might, for all we can tell from your fragment, be about (let us say) a research procedure into something potentially dangerous, or complex enough to give rise to many possible misundunderstandings.
    – Tuffy
    Commented Oct 21, 2020 at 14:13

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