dwivedys wrote:
I wonder what you mean by saying tourists loose the significance as it is out of scope
I was thinking in the similar lines of your explanation of E.
dwivedys wrote:
coming back to the pronoun reference issue -- I think the reason THEM refers to tourists in C and D and not in E
is that in C and D there is an intervening Clause which introduces TOURISTS in such a way that it can act as a more proximate antecedent (than chambers); recall that a pronoun refers to the nearest logical antecedent
Agree..!
dwivedys wrote:
In C -- it says -- Tourists WERE exhaling moisture ---- hence TOURISTS can act as a subject in its own right.
This is fine.
dwivedys wrote:
In D -- it says -- because of moisture that was exhaled by tourists -- again here even though the subject of the relative clause introduced by THAT is MOISTURE yet THEM cannot refer to moisture but instead refers to the predicate of the clause (Tourists) in this case.
In this case,
In late 1997, the chambers inside the pyramid of the Pharaoh Menkaure at Giza were closed to visitors for cleaning and repair because of moisture that was exhaled by tourists raising the humidity within them to levels so high as to make the salt from the stone crystallize and fungus was growing on the walls.
Lets cut it short.the chambers [strike]inside the pyramid of the Pharaoh Menkaure at Giza[/strike] were closed to visitors [strike]for cleaning and repair[/strike] because of moisture that was exhaled by tourists raising the humidity within them [strike]to levels so high as to make the salt from the stone crystallize and fungus was growing on the walls.[/strike]
the chambers were closed to visitors because of moisture that was exhaled by tourists raising the humidity within them.
this sentence can be broken down in 2 ways:
i) the chambers were closed to visitors because of moisture
(that was exhaled by tourists) raising the humidity within them.
ii) the chambers were closed to visitors because of moisture
(that was exhaled by tourists raising the humidity within them).
Is it correct? In this case 'raising the humidiy...' is modifying the tourists not the noun phrase "moisture...tourists".
in (ii) 'them' seems to refer to tourists.
can this be the reason.
dwivedys wrote:
In E if you notice because moisture exhaled by tourists cannot position tourist as a likely antecedent (because 'tourists' is part of a phrase and hence cannot stand on its own as a subject).
So does that mean if we have noun in the phrase modifier in the main clause, pronoun shouldn't refer back to it?
So is the below sentence incorrect?
"Book X written by John is not his best work."dwivedys wrote:
I am not sure if I was able to explain. Let me know if you need further explanation and I will try to explain again.
To be sure --- C and D have other problems which made eliminating them a lot easier -- to the extent that I had missed the pronoun reference entirely -- until you pointed it out.
I too look into the pronoun issue only after looking the explanation.