Choose the correct sequence to complete the correlative construction:
No sooner had the diplomatic delegates signed the preliminary accord ________ new skirmishes erupted along the disputed border.
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: A. than
Answer: than. Why not the others: 'when' is used with 'Hardly' or 'Scarcely', not with 'No sooner'; 'then' is an adverb of time, not a correlative subordinating conjunction; 'hardly' is a negative adverbial and cannot link the two clauses.
- Step 1: Identify the correlative conjunction paired with 'No sooner'. The comparative element 'sooner' grammatically pairs with 'than'.
- Step 2: Confirm standard syntactic usage: 'No sooner had ... than ...' describes an event immediately succeeded by another.
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