Clarification on pronouns

[sivai87]

Hi, I came across this question in the Manhattan GMAT Prep..

Q: researchers claim to have developed new "nano papers" incorporating tiny cellulose fibers, which they allege give them the strength of cast iron.

Due to pronoun ambiguity, this sentence is rewritten as,

Researchers claim to have developed new "nano papers" incorporating tiny cellulose fibers, which allegedly give these materials the strength of cast iron.

In the rewritten sentence, is'nt which ambiguous.. It might refer to the cellulose fibers or the nano papers.. I am very sorry if it is very basic.. but pls help me as I cannot proceed further to the next topic with a confused mind :)

Thanks in advance

[smohit04]

'...... X (noun) , which' will always modify the noun (X) preceding the ','

[tim]

that rule is a little oversimplified, but it will work about 99% of the time. you will encounter exceptions when the word before the comma is not an appropriate noun to match with "which". see OG problem 26 for an example; "which" cannot refer to "Susan Huntington Dickinson" ("which" cannot refer to a person), so it must refer to something else - in this case "letters"..

[sivai87]

Tim and Smohit.. Thanks very much for the reply..

[jnelson0612]

good! :-)