The "Which" Rule

[shahan25]

Guys,
I thought the pronoun "which" unambiguously refers to the noun next to it. However, some recent GMAT Official Guide problems (OG12) have thrown me off a little bit. Consider the following sentence:

"Bob’s gifts to Joe, which were expensive, outnumber his gifts to anyone else"

I think "which" here clearly refers to gifts since Joe will need to be referred by the word "who" so this sentence is correct but can you please confirm if there is another rule that I am missing.

There is a OG problem of this nature that I tried to put a post on but for some reason I wasn’t allowed to (I am a MGMAT ex-student).

Thank you for your help!

[esledge]

Hi shahan25,

You had trouble posting the OG question because we are prohibited from discussing those copyrighted questions on this forum.

Your original example is the perfect way to ask such questions, so thanks!

"Bob’s gifts to Joe, which were expensive, outnumber his gifts to anyone else"

I think "which" here clearly refers to gifts since Joe will need to be referred by the word "who" so this sentence is correct but can you please confirm if there is another rule that I am missing.

You are right that the which/who distinction helps make the meaning clear, but there IS another rule. Usually, "which" touches the noun it is intended to modify, but the exception is when another essential modifier of that noun intervenes.

"Bob's gifts" is a grammatically complete noun, but the meaning is not fully clear without the essential modifier "to Joe." There's not an easy way to phrase this without having two modifiers after "gifts," so this is OK.

Some similar examples:
The framed painting of the Statue of Liberty, which was dusty, has been removed for cleaning.

The presentation on bridges, which was informative, has really sparked interest in engineering careers.

Sophia's recipe for chocolate chip cookies, which uses vanilla and dark chocolate, won first prize at the state fair.

[goelmohit2002]

Hi Emily,

Thanks for awesome explanation !!

Can you please point to a location/web link that talks about these exceptions in a bit more detail. Or this is the only exception to the relative pronoun rule.

Kindly tell is this rule applicable to all the relative pronouns like who/whose/that/whom/where/which ?

Thanks
Mohit

[goelmohit2002]

Hi Emily,

Can you please look at the following post...this is a GPREP Question.....

Can you please tell why the same which rule is not followed here ?

http://www.beatthegmat.com/publishing-d ... 24630.html

Thanks
Mohit

[pee_be9]

Could you please advise whether this exemption 'which' rule is applied to other relative pronouns? (who, whom, whose, that, where, when)

Thank you very much.

[RonPurewal]

let me refine emily's previous post a bit.

from what we've seen, the gmat will primarily use "which" to refer to "X of Y" when Y itself is ineligible to serve as the antecedent.

let's take a look at emily's examples:

The framed painting of the Statue of Liberty, which was dusty, has been removed for cleaning.

while i won't say this is 100% wrong, it'd be unlikely to appear on the test, since "which" could conceivably be the statue.

The presentation on bridges, which was informative, has really sparked interest in engineering careers.

perfect.
"bridges" CAN'T be the antecedent, since "which was..." is SINGULAR. therefore, this is unambiguous.

Sophia's recipe for chocolate chip cookies, which uses vanilla and dark chocolate, won first prize at the state fair.

perfect.
"cookies" CAN'T be the antecedent, since "which uses..." is SINGULAR. therefore, this is unambiguous.

[Ben Ku]

ratheeshmallaya,

I guess you are referring to options b) and d) here. In these answer options, "...in the country" is NOT a necessary modifier for market and thus does not classify to fit the rule mentioned by Ron or Emily.

Please correct me if i am wrong.

You are right. In options (B) and (D), "which ranges" follows and seems to incorrectly modify "the country" since that's the noun it touches, and "in the country" is not an essential modifier.

[jai1902]

Hi shahan25,

You had trouble posting the OG question because we are prohibited from discussing those copyrighted questions on this forum.

Your original example is the perfect way to ask such questions, so thanks!

"Bob’s gifts to Joe, which were expensive, outnumber his gifts to anyone else"

I think "which" here clearly refers to gifts since Joe will need to be referred by the word "who" so this sentence is correct but can you please confirm if there is another rule that I am missing.

You are right that the which/who distinction helps make the meaning clear, but there IS another rule. Usually, "which" touches the noun it is intended to modify, but the exception is when another essential modifier of that noun intervenes.

"Bob's gifts" is a grammatically complete noun, but the meaning is not fully clear without the essential modifier "to Joe." There's not an easy way to phrase this without having two modifiers after "gifts," so this is OK.

Some similar examples:
The framed painting of the Statue of Liberty, which was dusty, has been removed for cleaning.

The presentation on bridges, which was informative, has really sparked interest in engineering careers.

Sophia's recipe for chocolate chip cookies, which uses vanilla and dark chocolate, won first prize at the state fair.

Hi Emily,

In the example- "Bob’s gifts to Joe, which were expensive, outnumber his gifts to anyone else." - what is the antecedent for pronoun 'HIS' ?

If I judge by meaning, Bob's gifts outnumbered anyone else's gift. So, HIS must (be trying to) stand for Bob.

But, the pronoun 'his' will avoid an antecedent which is in possessive case - Bob's . So, it must stand for noun Joe. But you said that 'to Joe' is a modifier. So, now, where do I find an antecedent?

Please educate me.

Jai

[abhey_seth]

Hi,

Hope this helps.

"who, whom, whose, that, where, when" are relative pronouns and they mostly refer back to the immediately preceding noun but in some cases they may refer back to noun which are separated usually by prepositional modifiers or phrases like "to Joe" in this case.

Thus in case of relative pronouns prepositional modifiers/phrases can be ignored sometimes.

[RonPurewal]

But, the pronoun 'his' will avoid an antecedent which is in possessive case - Bob's .

there is no problem with having "his" (itself a possessive) stand for another possessive.

by the way, you should just forget about this whole "possessive poison" thing. it has been a dispositive factor in exactly 0 official problems to date.
(if you are concerned with it, then you are probably using an outdated edition of the strategy guides.)