PASTEL--

The sentence looks a little strange, but I believe it is correct. You could write "I won't make such a huge mistake as he made."

Nestor

PS--There are two errors in your sentences, but perhaps they're just typos. You wrote 'to' instead of 'too', and 'wave' instead of 'waves'.

Hello, Pastel

"I won't make such a huge mistake as he did."

This is a grammatically correct sentence. It is true we say "make" a mistake, not "do" a mistake. But "did" is not used as a main verb in your example; it is used as the auxiliary of the past tense. This device, by which you can use "did" (or "do") to replace a verb group, is called "substitution": you substitute the auxiliary verb for the entire verb group and sometimes for an entire clause. Substitution is one of the four means by which cohesion in a text is achieved. Its main purpose is to avoid unnecessary repetition.

Similar examples are:
1. "Meg plays the piano better than I do the guitar." ("do" replaces "play")
2. A: "Come and stay with us."
B: "If I have time, I may do." (do replaces "come and stay with you")

Miriam

Hi, miriam:

Thank you very much for all elaborated description. You are truly thoughful. I know "substitution". And here as in my example,

>
' won't ' states a future situatuon that making such a huge mistake (like his) is impossible to happen. At some same, with the completion of "the mistake being made by him", this action was done in the past. So I use 'he did' to replace 'he made a huge mistake'. I think the origional sentence should be break into two sentencial elements.

1.He made a huge mistake.
2.I won't make such a huge mistake.


I got your meaning.

I won't do the homework like the way he did.
==>'did' is not used as the main verb in this sentence, it replaces the whole action happened in the past, which is 'the way he did his homework.' It's just a coincidence here that there seems to be a link between present 'do' and past 'did'. In fact, 'did' functions as 'substitution.'


Do I get you wrong?

Hello, Pastel

"I won't do the homework like the way he did."
This sentence can be improved. Actually, it is not completely correct. You could say, for example:
"I won't do my homework like he did (his)."
"I won't do my homework in the same way he did (his).


You said:
==>'did' is not used as the main verb in this sentence, it replaces the whole action happened in the past, which is 'the way he did his homework.' It's just a coincidence here that there seems to be a link between present 'do' and past 'did'. In fact, 'did' functions as 'substitution.'

It is true that in some cases, "did" is both the lexical verb (or main verb) and the auxuliary for the simple past tense as well.
When you use 'substitution', though, the one you're using is the auxiliary.

Suppose you had this sentence:
"I did well in the test; Mary did, too; Tom and Jim didn't."

Perhaps this sentence isn't the greatest of examples, but hopefully it will illustrate what I mean.
The verb "did" appears three times in the sentence, but only the first one (in bold type) is a lexical verb. In "Mary did well" and "Tom and John didn''t" it is an auxiliary verb. Perhaps "didn't" is easier to understand as an auxiliary, since we must use an auxiliary verb to form a negative sentence in the simple past.
If the second "did" isn't so easy to classify as one or the other, you can use a similar sentence with a different main verb -a verb other than "do"- anc compare both sentences then:

1. "I did well in the test; Mary did, too."
2. "I bought flowers this morning; Mary did, too."

Both sentences have a similar structure and, in both, the main verb has been replaced by the corresponding auxiliary in the second clause (Mary...).
"Bought" has been replaced by "did" in order to avoid repetition. A sentence such as "I bought flowers this morning and Mary bought flowers this morning" is correct from the point of view of grammar; yet it is not what you will usually say/hear. Using "substitution", you can avoid unnecessary repetition.

Now, if you compare #2 to #1, you can safely say that in #2 there is substitution too. Even when you have "did" in both clauses, only the first "did" is a main verb; the second is an auxiliary. If it were a main verb, you would have to say:
I did well in the test; Mary did well in the test too."

Let me know if this is not clear enough?

Miriam