Regarding Pronouns

[GMAT2008]

Hi,

Many times I get stuck,trying to evaluate as to what extent I need to SPLIT HAIR when it comes to checking Pronoun reference/agreement.

I have 2 examples for this:

1) Source : Manhattan Verbal Strategy Guide(Sentence Correction) 2003 Ed
Chapter 4 - pronouns-Problem Set
Question no 7:


We Finally chose the Coffee table towards the back of the store,which we
thought would complement our living room furniture.

The correction says:
We finally chose the coffee table towards the back of the store,BECAUSE we
thought IT would complement our living room furniture.

a)Here "IT" can refer to "COFFEE TABLE" or "BACK OF THE STORE".Is there something I failed
to understand..
b)Is it true that its never a hard and fast rule in GMAT that in "Noun,which",which neednot refer to
the noun in every case.I knoe its generally the case,but I would like to know if there are any exceptions to this GMAT rule.


My second example

2)Source: Scoretop.com

Heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved from the previous year, only look less appetizing than their round and red supermarket cousins, often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises, but are more flavorful.

The underlined part was from "cousins,often green....,but are"

To me the sentence "cousins,often green and....,but are" doesn't look erroneous.

The correction says:

cousins; they are often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises, but they are

If this is correct "THEY" could refer to "BUMPS AND BRUISES" or "HEIRLOOM TOMATOES".


Please let me know if I am missing some GMAT rule..........

Thanks a lot in anticipation........................





[/b]

[RonPurewal]

First one: It's a pretty solid rule that
'NOUN, which'
commits the 'which' to the NOUN that precedes it, as you've said. You could probably find sentences by reputable writers that break this pattern, but such sentences either (1) will be controversial or (2) indicate an 'off day' for the writer (or possibly both).

If the thing coming before the comma isn't compatible with 'which' - like a proper noun - then you can tolerate more flexibility. For instance, 'Joe kept hitting on Jim's wife, which made Jim mad' would probably be considered (marginally) acceptable, because 'which' clearly can't refer to the wife.

--

Second one:

The original is definitely erroneous. Not only is it absolutely unreadable, but the underlined portion implies (unambiguously) that the red supermarket cousins are 'often green and striped' (a contradiction!).

You do have a point about 'they'. Considerations of parallelism might resolve the issue here, but strictly speaking (and the GMAT always speaks strictly!!) there's a small ambiguity. The correct answer could be made better by changing the last words to just 'but are.'

[GMAT2008]

Thanks a lot Ron!

Though you have answered most of my doubts,there is a small one you,misssed.

In the same way I felt ambigous about "they" in my second question,I have a similar
doubt about "it" in my first question.

Can you please help me as to how i can resolve my doubt about the ambiguity of the pronoun
"it" which has more than one antecedents according to me.Am I wrong somewhere?

Thanks again for your responses..

[GMAT2008]

Hi MGMAT team,

I need your valueble inputs to understand the above doubt..

My doubt after Ron's reply..

[RonPurewal]

It can be considered unsavory for a pronoun to refer to the object of a preposition (i.e., everything after 'towards' here). Your question is good; I'll submit it to our other staff members.

I feel a little uneasy propounding this 'rule,' because I can think of seeming exceptions to it - for instance, I see nothing wrong with 'Many chapters of the manuscript were eliminated when it was first published' - but it's the only valid way to address your point.

The intended meaning in the coffee-table sentence is obvious, but, as you know, that's not good enough.

The best response here is the following: This isn't an official problem, so it hasn't passed the layers and layers of quality control that official problems DO pass. As such, because of the problem you have pointed out, it would probably be cut from the pool of real exam questions.

HTH

Ron

[StaceyKoprince]

There is a little bit of ambiguity even on the official GMAT in terms of what they consider acceptable for pronoun-antecedent match. It is definitely NOT the case that, just because there are multiple singular nouns and one singular pronoun that ALL of the singular nouns are possible antecedents. There seem to be two main ways in which the test will say that a particular singular noun is a possible antecedent:

1) The noun technically can fit with the pronoun, even if you know that's not what they're trying to say. For example, if I'm talking about a hungry dog and a hungry cat and I say I fed "it" cat food - presumably, I'm feeding the cat the cat food, but a dog could eat cat food too... so I'd have an ambiguity there.

2) The structure of the sentence implies a certain noun-pronoun match, but you know that's not the right noun due to meaning. For example, see the below OG question (10th edition, #12):

Formulas for cash flow and the ratio of debt to equity do not apply to new small businesses in the same way as they do to established big businesses, because they are growing and are seldom in equilibrium.

The above is the original sentence and it's grammatically incorrect. From the OG's explanation: "In A, the they after because is ambiguous; it seems illogically to refer to Formulas because they and Formulas are each the grammatical subject of a clause and because the previous they refers to Formulas."

This sentence is also a good example of my first principle. I know logically that "they are growing and are seldom in equilibrium" should be talking about small businesses, but technically large businesses could be growing and seldom in equilibrium too - just not as often as small businesses. I have to make clear that that info is referring specifically tos mall businesses.

Here's the right answer: "Because new small businesses are growing and are seldom in equilibrium, formulas for cash flow and the ratio of debt to equity do not apply to them in the same way as to established big businesses."

Notice the "them" - this one can only apply to small businesses b/c if a pronoun in that spot wanted to refer to formulas, it would have to say "themselves," not "them." And them can't refer to big businesses b/c the pronoun is in a comparison with big businesses and you can't compare big biz to big biz. (Try it: "do not apply to big businesses in the same way as to big businesses" - doesn't make sense.)

So with reference to whether "it" could refer to the back of the store - does it pass either of our tests?
We finally chose the coffee table towards the back of the store,BECAUSE we thought IT would complement our living room furniture.

1) Logically, the back of the store isn't going to complement our living room furniture, so this reason isn't good enough to consider back of the store a contender.
2) Structurally, we've got "We chose the coffee table" (subject verb object), "because we thought it" (subject verb object). So structure also supports the idea of the coffee table as the antecedent, not the back of the store.

I do agree with Ron that something like this may or may not pass the experimental phase on an official GMAT. But there will be some ambiguity even on the official test.

[christiancryan]

I'd just add a couple of points.

"We finally chose the coffee table towards the back of the store, BECAUSE we thought IT would complement our living room furniture."

1) I agree that "IT" might be considered ambiguous here. "IT" is actually the subject of an embedded sentence: "we thought [THAT] IT would complement...", so the roles don't exactly match: "coffee table" is the direct object of the verb "chose" in the first part of the sentence. Also, "store" is a good concrete noun, just like "coffee table," and "store" is closer to IT than "coffee table," so I definitely see the objections.

2) However, there is something of a hierarchy of "noun importance" in sentences:
a) Subject
b) Direct Object of the Main Verb
c) Objects of Prepositions, etc.

The direct object "coffee table" gets more emphasis in the sentence than "store" does ("store" is buried in a prepositional phrase), and so "coffee table" is perhaps a better antecedent.

No doubt, this is a tough area. As Stacey notes, there are competing rules, and the issue is not purely structural -- it also at least partially depends upon meaning (semantics). For instance, check out OG #65. The correct answer is this:
"The only way for growers to salvage frozen citrus is to have IT quickly processed into juice concentrate before warmer weather returns and rots the fruit."

Now, technically, there are TWO nouns that could be the antecedent of IT: "citrus" and "way."

Arguments for "citrus": (1) Closer to IT (2) Relatively important (direct object of "to salvage") (3) Matches case (both "citrus" and "IT" are direct objects of verbs) (4) Concrete noun -- that is, meaning. It makes no sense to say "to have THE WAY quickly processed." Moreover, as I read the sentence, I don't create an image in my head of a "way" -- but I do create an image in my head of "frozen citrus" -- which I am therefore more likely to refer to again.

Arguments for "way": (1) Subject of whole sentence -- technically, the most important noun, in some sense.

My point is that even in what seem to be pretty clear cases (ones on which the GMAT has taken a stand one way or another), there can be competing rules. The GMAT will come up with a strong defense for its position, though, so, long story short -- perhaps we should change this example!

[sachin.w]

Here's the complete question :


Heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved from the previous year, only look less appetizing than their round and red supermarket cousins, often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises, but are more flavorful.

(A) cousins, often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises, but are

(B) cousins, often green and striped, or with plenty of bumps and bruises, although

(C) cousins, often green and striped, or they have plenty of bumps and bruises, although they are

(D) cousins; they are often green and striped, or with plenty of bumps and bruises, although

(E) cousins; they are often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises, but they are


My Question is :
Does Although need to be followed by a clause always? can't it introduce a phrase?

[tim]

according to the explanation for #17 in OG13, this is "typically" and "usually" the case. however, #36 clearly violates this observation. the bottom line is that #36 provides clear evidence that "although" does not REQUIRE a clause..

[sachin.w]

Thanks Tim

[tim]

no problem!

[lindaliu9273]

You do have a point about 'they'. Considerations of parallelism might resolve the issue here, but strictly speaking (and the GMAT always speaks strictly!!) there's a small ambiguity. The correct answer could be made better by changing the last words to just 'but are.'

Hi Ron,
question 1
#1 : I remember that in Manhattan book:
if the pronoun is the subject of the clause, the pronoun refers to the subject of the paralleled clause(in E should be "they").

#2 : I also think if two clauses are paralleled and they have the same subject, the second subjuct should be omitted.(So, there's no need to discuss what the pronoun refer in #1)

#1 and #2 seem to be a little contradictory. Thus, I'm confused.

question 2
I choose D for the tomato question. Can you explain a little about why E is better than D. I can't decide the difference of with/have, but/although.

Thanks a lot....

[tim]

#1 you read in our book. #2 you "think" is true. Without putting too fine a point on it, I'd say we've found the source of your contradiction. :) Be careful about applying any "rules" you think of that don't actually exist in our materials.

As for why E is a better answer choice than D, this is not the question you should be asking. Sentence correction is NEVER about finding the right answer; it's always about eliminating four mistaken answer choices. So instead of asking why E is better you should be looking at what is wrong with D. Please take a close look at it and re-read the thread, then let us know if you still have any questions about why D is wrong.