I have a question about modifiers Vs misplaced modifiers when applied to certain sentences. Could someone elaborate on this:
For e.g:
Several accidents have been reported
involving passengers falling from trains
A rumor circulated among the staff
that he was being promoted to Vice President . (instead of "A rumor that he was being promoted to Vice President circulated among the staff.")
According to
http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/phra ... infinitive
it is okay to split the noun phrase [stuff in red]. How is this not wrong? In the above 2 examples the nouns [
accidents, rumor] have qualifying phrases/modifiers [
involving passengers falling from trains, that he was being promoted to Vice President] that are "away" from the noun they are qualifying. Isnt this the same as a misplaced modifier - for instance:
<Prepositional Phrase>, <some verbiage> followed by a noun?
Is it a rule that its okay to have subject verb <prepositional phrase> but NOT
<prepositional phrase> <some verbiage> followed by a noun?
I was under the impression that any qualifier for a noun should be right NEXT to the noun [either preceding or following]. If that is not the case how do you distingush between
"good" modifiers Vs Modifiers that modify a noun incorrectly - therefore creating misplaced modifiers.
All you SC experts please chime in.
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