warrior1991 wrote:
Quote:
• comma + past participle (verbED)
-- GMAT follows an unusual rule. Most grammarians allow [comma + past participle] to modify the entire previous clause.
GMAT does not.
-- If we have [comma + past participle], the past participle modifies the immediately preceding noun.
generis I read in one your posts the snippet above.
Is this sentence correct?
Quote:
Archaeologists were excited to examine the ancient manuscripts, found accidentally by a sheep farmer.
AjiteshArun VeritasKarishma AndrewN Your inputs on this will be much appreciated
Hello again,
warrior1991. I have been especially busy lately, so I am just getting to this. Completely by chance, you are the third person to ask me about this topic in as many days. Lucky for you, then, since I have already written a few responses that speak to the point. To answer your immediate question, yes, the
found phrase modifies the noun,
manuscripts, just on the other side of the comma in the sentence about archaeologists, so there is no problem whatsoever (i.e. the manuscripts were found accidentally by a sheep farmer). Confusion seems to arise when people look to turn this general convention—noun + comma + -ed modifier (to modify the last noun before the comma) into an absolute rule. You can read my post to another question that incorporated a gap with an -ed modifier
here. A little further down, I respond to another post and provide a link to some information from
Manhattan Prep on, you guessed it, exceptions to the "touch" rule regarding -ed modifiers. You can read that post
here.
I hope this helps shed some light on the issue. If you have further questions, feel free to ask.
- Andrew
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