Pronoun Ambiguity

Dear darrrrkhorse,

I'm happy to respond. Problem #1 is in a gray area.
Martha visited Susan as she was ill.
One could make the argument that the subject stays the same in both clauses, so that Martha is the antecedent. This interpretation flies in the face of obviously logic: why would the sick person go around visiting other people? "Hi, I'm deathly ill: let me visit you so I can pass my germs to you." The far more frequent case, and the more obvious reading, is that the sick person, Susan, is the one being visited. In a way, the more obvious grammar reading is in directly conflict with the more obvious logic reading, and this makes a sentence that is at odds with itself.

As for your second question, I am not clear on what you mean when you say "Pronouns that are to be taken together for consideration." Please be very clear.

Does this make sense?
Mike

Hi Mike,

Thanks once again for clearing the doubt and your swift response.

First problem is almost clesr now.

For the second problem as you have mentioned that they, them, their, theirs are single personal pronoun similarly ehat are the other groups to be taken together. Second i feel that they, them, their, theirs are plural pronouns and that too in subjective, complement and possesive form. So which other group's of pronoun can't refer to different antecedents.


For problem 1-: which is the best way to find pronoum ambiguity error.

Please help.

Regards

Dear darrrrkhorse,
I'm happy to respond.

My friend, I am going to begin by chiding you. This is a public forum, and anyone in the world can see what you say here. Some of the people on GC right now might someday be your bosses, your colleagues, your partners, your suppliers, your customers, etc. The business world is full of relationships, and you never get a second chance to make a first impression. This post of yours had four different spelling mistakes, mistakes that make it hard to interpret what you are trying to communicate. This does not reflect well on you in any way. I believe it is a big mistake to treat this forum in too casual a manner. You are preparing for the GMAT because you intend to enter professional life, so I think it is much better to put your best professional self forward here. It has been said that "How you do anything is how you do everything," and you certainly don't want someone who believes that making an evaluation of you when you are not at your best. It is a valuable habit to strive to bring the best of yourself to every occasion. This habit will serve you well in GMAT preparation, in business school, and in your career.

For problem #1, there is a limit to what pronouns can do. For clarity, I would say:
1a) Martha visited Susan as the latter was ill.
1b) Martha visited Susan as Susan was ill.
Pronouns are very limited words. It is unwise to stretch what they can do. It is better to repeat nouns to create clarity.

For #2, I think you are asking about personal pronouns. If you purchase the Magoosh product, I have a lesson in which I spell out all the relationship of the personal pronouns. I would highly recommend that.

Mike

Dear Mike,

Your point is well taken and in future I will try my best not to repeat the mistakes pointed above. My above reply was written on a mobile. Any how, I accept my mistake and I will try that it doesn't repeat.

Beginning with your one liner, which states that "How you do anything is how you do everything," I suppose that in your chiding you wrote " Some of the people on GC right now might someday by your bosses, your colleagues, your partners, your suppliers, your customers, etc. "

I suppose that by writing "by" above you meant to write "be". Please correct me if I am wrong.

Your first post mentions the following-:

"There is a rule, a very clear rule, that if the same pronoun appears in the same clause, it must refer to the same antecedent. By same, we mean the all the forms of a single personal pronoun (they, them, their, theirs). In that MGMAT sentence, in the "which" clause, we have a "they" referring to one antecedent and a "them" referring to another. This is strictly forbidden. It doesn't matter than we can use logic to figure out what refers to what. Figuring out things with logic doesn't fix the fact that this is an irredeemable error. "

In above reply you have mentioned they, them, their and theirs as single personal pronoun.First, I had a doubt that these personal pronouns are plural as per my knowledge. If I am wrong in thinking so then please correct me. Second, I wanted to know which pronouns are considered in one group, so that if same group pronouns are used in a single sentence then I can check that same group pronouns are referring to the same antecedent or not.

Thanks for your support and valuable guidance. I will keep a note of all the learning's received in this post for future.

Regards.

Dear darrrrkhorse,
I'm happy to respond.

Yes, you are correct about by/be, a typo on my part. None of us are perfect. No one is perfect and it is always important to strive to do one's best.

Ah, now I understand the question you are asking. The pronoun {they, them, their, theirs) are of course grammatically plural, as are (we, us, our, ours) and "these" and "those" ---- all plural in the grammatical sense, in the sense that their antecedents must be plural things.

I was using the word "single" in a very different sense, not at all referring to the grammar idea of singular/plural. I was trying to communicate that naive students might look at "they" and "their" and "them" as three different pronouns, but at a deep logical level, these different words are all part of one and the same pronoun. It is a "single" pronoun in the sense of being one thing, not three different things. All of the personal pronouns have a variety of forms (subjective, objective, possessive), but beneath these appearances, each pronoun is a single unity. This is an idea that operates on a quite different level from the grammatical classification of some pronouns as singular and plural.

Does this make sense?
Mike