Adverbial Modifier

[SameerM316]

Hi, my question is on Adv Modifiers.

I'm referring to an example from Strategy Guide-- 2020 All the Verbal edition, page 60. The sentence is,

"The CEO declared that everyone had to work through the holidays to make the production deadline, but in calling for such an extreme measure, the company's employees were upset to the point of mutiny."

Here is "in calling for such an extreme measure" is an Adv Mod- that's clear to me. Not, we also know, that it NEED NOT touch the part that it's modifying. Here it is modifying "the CEO".

However, the explanation follows that, sentence needs to be corrected by placing "The CEO" closer to this modifier. The correct version of this sentence is,

"The CEO declared that everyone had to work through the holidays to make the production deadline, but in calling for such an extreme measure, SHE upset her employees to the point of mutiny.".

My question- why do we need "SHE" (the CEO) be placed near the adv modifier, if thee mods need not have such requirement.

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

You're right that adverbial modifiers are usually more freely placed in sentences and often don't touch the part of the sentence that they're modifying. However, this doesn't mean that their position in the sentence is unimportant and that they can be placed anywhere.

Read these two example sentences. Both are correct, but try to see how the meanings are different:
When I was a child I had a dream that I lost my dog.
I had a dream that when I was a child I lost my dog.
The modifier 'when I was a child' creates a different meaning depending on where it's placed in the sentence. Now, this is a really complicated area of grammar, so please don't try to learn all the rules (or you can if you like, and then come back in a few years to explain them to me, because I don't know them all). What we recommend for GMAT is to master a few principles, then use your good knowledge of English, your logic, and example GMAT problems to get accustomed to the kind of thing you need to solve for SC.

One of those principles is that modifiers that come at the beginning of sentences modify what comes right after. Sometimes we call them 'opening modifiers' and I'm pretty sure that you use them all the time, in correct sentences such as:
The greatest tennis player of all time, Roger Federer comes from Switzerland.
Exhausted after a long run, Stacey lay on the sofa.
Happy to see his friends, Omar waved excitedly.
The sentence in your example has a similar structure, except that after the word 'but' we have a kind of new sentence, with an opening modifier 'in calling'.