Question

Choose the correct option to fill the blank.

No sooner did the thief see the public ______ he ran away.

• A. then
• B. and
• C. but
• D. than

Answer 1

The correct option is D than

The sentence is talking about the time when the thief ran away. The sentence begins with 'No sooner' which is a part of a correlative conjunction. Conjunctions which are used in pairs are called correlative conjunctions. Examples are 'No sooner..than'; 'not only...but also'; 'Neither...nor' etc. Therefore, the correct sentence will use the word 'than.'

"No sooner did the thief see the public THAN he ran away."

Options A, B and C are all conjunctions, but they cannot be used along with 'no sooner' to complete the sentence meaningfully.