Question

请高手翻译英语句子并分析语法结构

Indeed, this conclusion was all but inevitable if no search was made for other restraints, and so complete was the preoccupation with competition that none was made.

句子选自一篇关于商业中竞争问题的文章。下面是这句话所处的语境：

They also came to look to competition exclusively and in formal theory still do. The notion that there might be another regulatory mechanism in the economy had been almost completely excluded from economic thought. Thus, with the widespread disappearance of competition in its classical form and its replacement by the small group of firms if not in overt, at least in conventional or tacit, collusion, it was easy to suppose that since competition had disappeared, all effective restraint on private power had disappeared. <Indeed, this conclusion was all but inevitable if no search was made for other restraints, and so complete was the preoccupation with competition that none was made.>

Answer 1

实质上，在不探究其他限制因素的情况下，得出这个结论几乎是必然的。更何况他们对竞争的成见之深，根本没法再探究其他因素。

这句话 前面主句的主语是this conclusion， 谓语是was ，表语是 inevitable ，后面if 引出一个并列句。并列句‘no search was made for other restraints, and so complete was the preoccupation with competition that none was made’中的两个小句都用了倒装形式。第一个小句很简单，第二个句子 so complete was the preoccupation with competitionthat none was made’的可以理解为 the preoccupation with competitionthat was so complete that none (of the search) was made’ 。

追问

第二个倒装分句解释地很清楚，其实我就是这个部分不明白，现在完全懂了。
但是关于“preoccupation”这个词的理解，我觉得不应该是“成见”，“the preoccupation with competition was so complete”,翻译成“关于竞争的研究是如此地完善”，你觉得呢？

追答

嗯，你这样翻译应该好一些。
可以改成：实质上，在不探究其他限制因素的情况下，得出这个结论几乎是必然的。而且关于竞争的研究已经很完善，无须再探究其他因素。

Answer 2

主干：this conclusion was all , and so complete was the preoccupation .
if no......restraints 是条件状语从句，修饰整个句子
with competition 是介词+名词 作 the preoccupation 的后置定语
that none was made 是同谓语从句，说明competition