Pronoun question

[mikrodj]

the mechanism has to prevent developers from firing events that they did not specify.

Is the pronoun they ambiguous here or does it clearly refers to developers?

Thank you in advance.

[JonathanSchneider]

I'm not sure what the meaning of this sentence is, as I'm not sure how you can fire events.

Nonetheless, it's quite possible that this pronoun is clear. Pronoun ambiguity is more art than science. In this case, the pronoun "they" is part of a modifier that describes the word "events." We would not want to use the word "they" to mean events, when the modifier here is meant to describe "events." (Otherwise the meaning would be: "events that events did not specify." This is nonsensical.)

[mikrodj]

Hi Jonathan, sorry for the lack of context in the sentence.
I was writing a manual for work and this question came up.
Developers fire events so I want the pronoun they to refer to developers not to events. For instance

the mechanism has to prevent developers from firing events that they did not specify

the mechanism has to prevent developers from firing events that developersdid not specify

Which one is correct?

They is the subject in the second clause but it doesn't refer to the subject of the first clause so I thought it was ambiguous because it could refer to developers or events even thought I know that only developers can fire events.
Is my reasoning right?

thank you in advance.

[StaceyKoprince]

You can use either sentence. You'd have a problem if the subject of the main clause were also plural, because then you'd expect a subject pronoun to refer to the subject of the sentence. But because the subject is singular and the pronoun plural, you know that the pronoun does not refer to the subject. Then, as Jonathan said, you also know that the subject pronoun doesn't refer to the noun it is modifying, so there's only one thing left that the pronoun could reference.

In general, though, if something feels ambiguous to you, or you think people might be confused, then you should repeat the noun (developers). It might sound a little clunky, but you know that there's no ambiguity, so it's worth it!

[mikrodj]

Thank you very much for the explanation.

[StaceyKoprince]

:)