sahilmshah92
VeritasPrepKarishma
TGC
As posted previously by folks, I have the same query.
In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concluded that sedentary life-styles lead to heart and lung diseases that shorten lives, strongly recommending middle-aged people to undertake some form of regular exercise.
The -ING modifier modifiers 'researchers'.
MR, strongly recommending blah blah blah, concluded that sedentary life-styles lead to heart and lung diseases.
And recommendation can likely be assumes as a result of the conclusion of researchers.
After concluding they recommended
Please confirm
Responding to a pm:
The verb recommend needs subjunctive. So "A recommends that B do C" is the proper format.
Also, when I read the sentence, there is a disconnect between researchers and recommending. I expect the VERB+ing modifier to modify the closest subject which is 'sedentary lifestyles'. But it actually modifies researchers and that doesn't work. We are looking for the subject researchers again which option (E) provides by using 'they'.
I've a doubt guys. Would be really helpful if someone could throw some light on it.
As everybody here has pointed out that "recommending", which is a Verb+ing modifier refers to the previous clause and must make sense with the subject and verb of that clause. However, in my opinion it seems, the subject of the previous clause is
not 'sedentary lifestyles' but
'heart and lung diseases' as we have another
that clause after the 'sedentary lifestyles' that clause.
Or is it that "heart and lung diseases that shorten lives" is NOT a clause? In that case, would we say that whenever "that" refers to a noun from another clause followed by a verb is not a stand alone clause by itself?
Tagging experts for help.
VeritasPrepKarishma mikemcgarryegmat"that sedentary life-styles lead to heart and lung diseases that shorten lives" - is a subordinate "that" clause.
Subject - sedentary life-styles
Verb - lead
"that shorten lives" - is a modifier modifying "heart and lung diseases"
So the structure of the clause is "A lead to B"
B is "heart and lung diseases that shorten lives"
The basic structure of the sentence comes out when you ignore all modifiers.
Here it is
"researchers ... concluded that ... life-styles lead to ... diseases..., recommending middle-aged people to undertake exercise"
The subject of the subordinate clause is closer to "recommending".