# 9 Chapter 5 of Critical Reasoning - Ambiguous Pronouns

[uunders]

So, just how ambiguous do pronouns have to be in order for it to be considered wrong? The strategy guide seems to be very inconsistent on this issue.

For example...on page 92, the explanation for # 9 of the pronoun chapter seems to regard an ambiguous pronoun as correct, justified by really arbitrary reasons.

#9 page 92, answer explanation
We finally chose the coffee tabk towards the back of the store, because we thought it would complememt our living room furniture.

We is a pronoun that never has an antecedent in the semence, because we is a first person (we refers
to the people speaking). - makes sense

Table is the amecedent of it. (Why is store not the antecedent? Table is a more "attractive"
antecedent for it because: (1) table and it are in the same case (objective), and have similar rolf;,S in
the sentence: both are the objects of verbs (chose, thought) of which we is the subject, and (2) store is
in a particularly unattractive place for an antecedent is buried inside a prepositional phrase
(towards the back ofthe store). - does not make sense to me. I dont understand how this justify that the pronoun "it" is not ambiguous. It is worst because table and store are both parallel (both objects), so how is the reader suppose to know what it refers to? Is there some rule that I am not getting?


The original sentence is incorrect because the pronoun which refers to store. Store is an ilogical
antecedent for which, because the table, pot the store, is what would complemem someone's living

Please help!!
room furniture.

[JonathanSchneider]

Actually, I think we need to update this. The "it" is not actually in the object case, but rather the subject case. "It" is the subject of "would complement..." However, this is OKAY as a match to the "table," even though "table" is an object here. Remember, subject and object pronouns can refer to subjects and objects - no real problem there.

As to your question re: clarity: I agree with the book's description: "towards the back of the store" simply modifies the "table." "Table" is the thing we are really interested in. As such, "it" is clear. Pronoun rules are strange, and more of an art than an exact science, but does the "it" really sound ambiguous to you? Or are you potentially trying to apply the rules too strictly? (Note that you could also argue that "back" is a possible antecedent, but you didn't argue for that one - most likely because you never would have thought of that as ambiguous, even though it is a noun that is closer to the pronoun than is the antecedent - further proof that the "rules" are meant to be employed judiciously.)

[cesar.rodriguez.blanco]

are you talking about p92 of the 3rd version of CR? I do not see this example in the book

[JonathanSchneider]

You probably have the 3.1 edition of our books. The person who first posted here was working from the 3rd edition. Your copy is slightly newer. The main difference was that we pushed the "advanced" content to the end of the book, rather than having it at the end of each chapter. The result is skewed page numbers. So, when you're looking over stuff on the forums, just follow along by the problem number. That will usually take care of it. In cases where it does not, you may have to search the problem lists for the specific wording in order to match to older posts here.