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1981.jason
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Pronoun reference to a noun in a prepositional phrase

by 1981.jason Sat Aug 14, 2010 2:54 am

Hi Ron,

I read one topic regarding Pronoun reference to a noun in a prepositional phrase:
pronoun-reference-to-a-noun-in-a-prepositional-phrase-t7725.html

In the post, you mentioned 'i've seen instances in which pronouns can clearly refer to objects of prepositions. however, in all of those cases, the pronouns themselves were ALSO objects of prepositions - so they were PARALLEL to the referent nouns.'

But in below PREP SC, 'it' clearly refers to W Post:
It was only after Katharine Graham became publisher of The Washington Post in 1963 that it moved into the first rank of American newspapers, and it was under her command that the paper won high praise for its unrelenting reporting of the Watergate scandal

Can you help? Thanks Ron.
RonPurewal
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Re: Pronoun reference to a noun in a prepositional phrase

by RonPurewal Sun Sep 05, 2010 1:36 am

1981.jason Wrote:Hi Ron,

I read one topic regarding Pronoun reference to a noun in a prepositional phrase:
pronoun-reference-to-a-noun-in-a-prepositional-phrase-t7725.html

In the post, you mentioned 'i've seen instances in which pronouns can clearly refer to objects of prepositions. however, in all of those cases, the pronouns themselves were ALSO objects of prepositions - so they were PARALLEL to the referent nouns.'

But in below PREP SC, 'it' clearly refers to W Post:
It was only after Katharine Graham became publisher of The Washington Post in 1963 that it moved into the first rank of American newspapers, and it was under her command that the paper won high praise for its unrelenting reporting of the Watergate scandal

Can you help? Thanks Ron.


oh hey
well, that discussion was in the context of resolving ambiguous pronouns (i.e., pronouns with more than one possible antecedent in the sentence).
if you have an unambiguous pronoun -- like "it" in the sentence above -- then these sorts of subtleties aren't worth worrying about; if there's only one antecedent, then just take it and move on.

happily, though, it turns out that you don't need ten thousand different little subtle rules for the preferences surrounding ambiguous pronouns.
it turns out that, at least for the official problems we've seen so far, the following rather simple rule works.
see link:
post40400.html#p40400