<p>1) The book is equally important, however, because it combines spiritual autobiography, which was popular at the time, and slave narrative, which some say Equiano invented.</p>
<p>How is "however" used correctly?</p>
<p>2) Even though comedy can convey profound messages about humankind, tragedy has been taken more serious than comedy.</p>
<p>Why is "more serious" used incorrectly, should it be "more seriously"? If so what's the rule?</p>
<p>3) Although there seems to be many ways to solve the puzzle...
"There seems" is used incorrectly. Should it be "there seem"? What is the subject?</p>
<p>It is used as a parenthetical. The sentence is essentially saying that “the book is equally important because it combines spiritual autobiography.” It simply adds “however” mid-clause to form a contrast with respect to something previously said in context (e.g., in the previous sentence). It can be placed at the beginning of the sentence and still have the same function: "However, the book is equally important because . . . ". It is an adverb in this case, so it can be placed at the beginning to introduce the clause (“sadly, all was lost”) or after the clause (“All was lost, sadly”).</p>
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Yes, it should be “seriously,” because it is an adverb that modifies “taken,” which is a verb. “Serious” is an adjective, which modifies nouns. Tragedy is serious; hence, people take tragedy very seriously.</p>
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Yes, it should be “there seem,” because “there” is a dummy pronoun. A common example of a dummy pronoun is “it”: “it rained.” “It” in this case obviously doesn’t refer to a specific thing.</p>
<p>The word “there” in the phrase “there seem to be many ways to solve the puzzle” broadly refers to “many ways.” That is why it is plural. Take this sentence: “It is great that you are studying early.” The phrase “that you are studying early” acts as a noun. You can refer to this noun as “the fact that you are studying early,” for example. “It” refers to this noun. Thus, the sentence is essentially saying “that you are studying early is great.” But, to assign the adjective to the front of the sentence, you cannot simply say that “great is that you are studying early.” You would have to say that “it is great that you are studying early.” This is the purpose of a dummy pronoun.</p>
<p>Of course, this was an unnecessary lesson. You don’t need to know technical terms like “dummy pronoun” and all these structural things. Just know that “there” doesn’t refer to anything specific in this sentence; thus, it cannot determine whether a verb is plural or singular.</p>