[Jan D. Hodge]

"After the death of the father and the sons had each gotten a ring, . . ."

Is this grammatically correct? It has been cited as a case of faulty parallelism and so a grammatical error.

Though not grammatically parallel, both "the death of the father" [noun phrase] and "the sons had each gotten a ring" [clause] follow "after." But in the first instance "after" is technically a preposition, and in the second instance it is a subordinating conjection. Is this grammatically acceptable, an example of zeugma? Or is it a fault to be corrected?

Cf. e.g.: "After midnight and the moon had set, we could still hear the distant howling of wolves."

Thanks,
Jan