aidyn wrote:
egmat wrote:
Hi all,
Famed for his masterful use of irony, many of Guy de Maupassant's short stories have become classics due to the author slowly revealing at the end of each piece a tragic twist of fate.There has been a lot of discussion about the meaning conveyed by this sentence and many posters feel the even if Choice D is the correct answer, it does not communicate the intended meaning. Here is my take on this:
The main clause of this sentence says that Guy de Maupassant’s short stories have become classics. So, I feel that this is the crux of the sentence. Whatever extra information is present in the sentence is about why these stories became classics. The reason why his short stories have become classics is that Guy de Maupassant used irony in his writing in a masterful manner. His talent can be seen in the way he revealed a tragic twist of fate at the end of each piece.
ERROR ANALYSIS:1. The opening verb-ed modifier “Famed for his…” is incorrectly modifying the subject of the preceding clause “many of Guy de Maupassant's short stories”. Who was famed? The writer Guy de Maupassant was famed and not many of his short stories. Hence, we have MODIFIER ERROR in this sentence.
2. Usage of “due to” is not correct here. Whether the usage of “due to” is correct or not can be checked by a simple test. Replace “due to” with “caused by”. If the sentence still makes sense, then use of “due to” is correct.
POE:B. Many of Guy de Maupassant's short stories have become classics because of how he famously and masterfully uses irony, evident in the slow revelation of a tragic twist of fate at the end of each piece.
Incorrect: i. “because of” should be followed by a noun or clause beginning with noun.
ii. Non-possessive pronoun “he” cannot refer to possessive “of Guy de Maupassant's” because this entity is an adjective in this sentence that modifies “short stories”. A pronoun cannot refer to an adjective. It can only refer to a noun or another pronoun
D. Many of Guy de Maupassant's short stories have become classics because of the author's famed and masterful use of irony, evidenced in the slow revelation of a tragic twist of fate at the end of each piece.
Correct.E. Many of Guy de Maupassant's short stories have become classics because he slowly revealed a tragic twist of fate at the end of each piece, demonstrating his famed and masterful use of irony.
Incorrect. . This choice repeats the same pronoun error of Choice B.
One question.
I chose (D), but had some doubts towards (E).
I've always been under impression that in GMAT, as long as the non-possessive pronoun is clear, it should be acceptable even without any noun to refer to.
For example, in this case,
"he" is clearly talking about Guy de Maupassant. Hence, the meaning is clear, and we should be able to accept the usage of such pronoun.
Can anyone please clear my doubts?
I understand that (E) has a shift in meaning, but I just want to know whether we can accept the pronoun usage.
, shortish answer: whether we can use the possessive
noun as an antecedent for a non-possessive pronoun depends on a number of factors, a few of which I discuss below.
It is likely that the better construction is one in which a non-possessive pronoun has a non-possessive noun.
• Many factors are involved(1) the post that you quote was written in 2013, before GMAC's 2016 publication of
this official question, here, about Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Before
OG 2016, nearly every expert in the industry believed that GMAC would not allow a subject pronoun (she) to have a possessive antecedent noun (Mary's).
(2) the (revised) guideline about "possessive poison" is restrictive. I use four official examples to discuss revision of possessive poison in
this post, here.
The pairing of, say,
her and
Mary's is allowed
occasionally.
That pairing is not automatically incorrect.
And that pairing is not automatically acceptable.
If two options seem equally good, choose the one that uses
she and
Mary rather than
she and
Mary's.
(3) In terms of meaning, I disagree slightly with the post you quote.
The main clause of this sentence says that Guy de Maupassant’s short stories have become classics. So, I feel that this is the crux of the sentence. Whatever extra information is present in the sentence is about why these stories became classics. I agree that the crux of the sentence is that the short stories have become classics.
I disagree, though, that the "why" information (really, the "how") is just "extra information."
In D, inanimate short stories passively become classics because of the (passive) author's use of irony.
-- This instance is one in which the passive voice is better. We want to downplay agency. Short stories do not consciously use irony. The author does so.
-- If option #1 downplays the agency of inanimate objects and uses pronouns that match, especially when option #2 shifts from passive subject to active agency and contains a mismatch between pronoun and noun, we should choose #1.
Please see my post above,
here. I think that (D) is the better sentence regardless of pronoun issues and in that post I explain why.
Finally, the subject of the sentence is the
stories.
If we want to use active voice and to make the sentence about the stories that became classics because he used irony, we would write (E) this way:
E. Guy de Maupassant wrote short stories,
many of which have become classics because he slowly revealed a tragic twist of fate at the end of each piece, demonstrating his famed and masterful use of irony.
In my post directly above, I should have been more clear that the possessive antecedent was not
the big issue. The big issue is that (D) is a better sentence for reasons I discuss in that post.
I amended that post and clarified the word "may."
*****
• possessive poison?First, let’s clarify: as long as meaning is clear, a subject or object pronoun may [is occasionally allowed to] have an antecedent that is a possessive noun.
You emphasize the non-possessive pronoun and say that it must be clear.
We must also emphasize that the antecedent
noun (to which the pronoun refers) is clear.
Even in that case, if an
equally good option pairs a pronoun with a “regular” (non-possessive) noun, I would choose that option.
I can understand how you might believe that it is always okay to have a possessive noun antecedent for a non-possessive pronoun, but that belief is too strong.
In fact, it is likely that the presumption tilts the other way. I would accept a possessive antecedent for a non-possessive pronoun only if no other option were correct.
Furthermore, in POE, if an option has a non-possessive pronoun (e.g. her) and a possessive antecedent noun (Ella’s), flag the option as a possible answer but look for correct options that do not use this pairing.
My post about this issue says that this construction is sometimes okay. If the most correct option contains this pairing (as is the case in the four official questions that I discussed), then choose that option.
In my post, the main message of the revised possessive poison guideline is simply that we should
not automatically dismiss a pronoun whose antecedent noun is possessive.
“Do not automatically dismiss X” does not equal “Always accept X.”The revision does
not say: if a pronoun has an antecedent noun that is possessive, then that pairing is always okay.
No. That pairing is okay
on occasion and is rare.
You just took the guideline too far in the wrong direction. Go the other way. It is probably better to avoid pairing a possessive noun and a non-possessive pronoun, but if the best answer uses that pairing, choose that answer.
Hope that helps.
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Updated on: 05 Jun 2021, 04:15
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