The manager froze and was unable to say anything WHEN he was

[JbhB682]

Page 69 , Guide 8 - SC guide

The manager froze and was unable to say anything WHEN he was pushed to justify his decision; he eventually broke down in tears.

Hi - this is considered an acceptable sentence per the manhattan study guide

Question :

1) The blue is a modifier ..I know "When modifiers" modify noun events or time ...

Could you confirm the blue modifier is referring to the noun event in the underline ?

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

The word 'when' can be used to introduce a noun modifier, for example 'There was a time when I was young.' However, it has other uses too, for example as a question word - 'When are you going to arrive?'. It can also be used as a conjunction, and that's what's happening here. Sure, you can see this as a kind of adverbial modifier, giving extra information about the time something happened. For example, in the sentence 'I screamed at 5pm', 'at 5pm' gives information about the time I screamed. I could just as well say 'I screamed when I saw a snake.' Here, the 'when...' clause is performing the same function as 'at 5pm.' - it's an adverbial modifier. That's the use in the sentence you quote above.

[JbhB682]

Thanks Sage ...

I think what you are saying is that it's not a noun modifier but a subordinate conjunction in this case ..

Question : is there an acronym for subordinate conjunctions you keep in mind ?

I obviously know about FANBOY conjunctions but subordinate conjunctions are much larger

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

No, I don't have a handy list - there are simply too many. How are your GMAT studies going? It looks like you're investing a lot of time in mastering GMAT. I would encourage you to ask a question in the General GMAT Strategy Questions folder about your approach to GMAT, your recent practice tests, and your progress in studying.