crejoc wrote:
Thanks for replying Emily, thanks for the split up analysis,
first of all a question in #1 i understood with C, D and E the noun "new evidence" is modified by the respective phrases, where as in A- "undermining" being an -ing participle modifies the subject of the preceding clause, in that case does it modifies "recent study"? i thought "recent study" to be the noun of the previous clause, where am i going wrong? i think a comma before the -ing participle makes a difference, is that applicable here, please clear this is..
As #3 has more splits,i think "caused by" is preferred since we need "which plague" caused it. so B wins?, and it also has "theory that..." as you said "theory of.." seems unidiomatic. am i missing something?
Ah, you are definitely thinking of the rule for when -ing follows a comma. In that case, the present participle modifies the preceding clause, or can be considered to modify the subject of that preceding clause.
However, when an -ing word follows a noun directly, with no comma, it acts as a noun modifier and follows the rule that noun modifiers touch the modified noun. Thus, "undermining" in A and B modifies "evidence."
In my view, B is correct. Ultimately parallelism and modifier placement decided it for me, especially the choice between B and C.
(B) …theory that a plague caused by (something) contributed to the deaths…
(C) …theory that a plague was caused by (something) and that contributed…: Parallelism between "that a plague was caused by..." and "that contributed to the deaths" indicates that both relative clauses modify "theory." But the theory itself did not contribute to the deaths of millions!
NOTE: In all choices, (something) = a rapid increase in pest populations