The first political passengers on modern railroad cars were

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The first political passengers on modern railroad cars were [#permalink]

29 Jun 2008, 04:06

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The first political passengers on modern railroad cars were a president, a senator, and a governor, who traveled to Washington, D.C. together on the Liberty Express in 1907.

The above sentence is correct. My question here is which noun exactly does "who" refer to in this sentence? thanks

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Re: SC Pronoun Reference issue [#permalink]

29 Jun 2008, 04:44

"Which" and "that" usually refer to immediate preceding noun. Pronouns like "Who", "Whose" etc. usually refer to subject of preceding sentence if they agree with the subject (agreement implies in terms to number).

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Re: SC Pronoun Reference issue [#permalink]

29 Jun 2008, 05:30

so "who" here refers to? i'm sorry, but i need a direct answer. thanks for the input though, but when I do what you just said, the sentence would appear to me as:

The first political passengers who traveled to Washington, D.C. together on the Liberty Express in 1907? I feel that it's not complete. is that really what the sentence is simply saying?

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Re: SC Pronoun Reference issue [#permalink]

29 Jun 2008, 05:48

tarek99 wrote:

who - can refer to passengers OR governor.
The keyword is together. If it referring to governor - TOGETHER is illogical.
So it must be referring to passengers.

But just in case the statement were something like:
The first political passengers on modern railroad cars were a president, a senator, and a governor, who likes to travel.

who = governor.( as likes is singular and cannot connect a plural subject to rest of sentence )

But again if the statement were:
The first political passenger on modern railroad cars was a governor, who likes to travel.

In this case there is no confusion as who = passenger = governor.

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Re: SC Pronoun Reference issue [#permalink]

29 Jun 2008, 06:14

Thank you! that was such a complete explanation! thank you all once again!

Re: SC Pronoun Reference issue [#permalink] 29 Jun 2008, 06:14

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The first political passengers on modern railroad cars were

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