A sentence

pdh0224 · Post by **pdh0224** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 3:16 am

Dear teacher,

For example, in one study reviewed in the paper, of 934 women over age 60 who had routine chest X-rays, 132 had visible moderate to severe vertebral fractures. But only 17 of them had these fractures noted on their discharge statements.

Q : what does "moderate" refer to in the sentence?

What is the function of the phrase " to severe verterbral

fractures"?

Alan · Post by **Alan** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 1:05 pm

The phrase is elliptical: it means that they had visible vertebral fractures RANGING (in seriousness) FROM moderate TO severe.