On a Chippewa reservation in Wisconsin, young members of the tribe are

What is wrong with C?

It even carries the meaning and intent of the original sentence.

How to know when parallelism is sneaking in between the meaning.

1. use of past tense: Was the language only forgotten in past, giving a feeling that it has been revived now? Or has it been forgotten until now? One can appreciate that the ancient language has been forgotten until now.

Therefore the use of past tense is utterly wrong. We should remove A, B, C and E for this reason alone

We can see D is the most relevant since it scrupulously avoids the past tense.

2. for learning vs. to learn:
Why are the young members using computers?
- For a purpose, namely to learn the forgotten language- When a purpose is involved, the right thing is to use the infinitive. That is the reason 'to learn' is the correct idiom.

3. How can 'and' be a parallel marker?: True that ancient is an adjective and nearly forgotten is also an adjectival phrase. Since nearly is modifying the adjective forgotten, it does not interfere with the parallelism marked by the conjunction 'and'

Even though I selected D. I would like raise one issue.

In option D

On a Chippewa reservation in Wisconsin, young members of the tribe are using computers to learn their ancient and nearly forgotten language.

Is D implying computers to learn ancient and nearly forgotten language? According to me, it feels that D is implying the computers to learn not young members.

One more thing I am considering 'to learn -----' phrase adjective modifier not adverbial modifier.

And Option A seems ok

I would be glad if you can elaborate.



daagh GMATNinja Abhi077

avinashiitp 'young members' is the subject followed by the verb 'are using' this clearly presents that young members are using computers for an intent. what is that intent? it's 'to learn' We also use the to-infinitive to express purpose/intention.

Abhi077 Yes, I understand but to me sentence seems to imply computer to learn.

If the Sentence was framed in below mentioned format I would made sense.

On a Chippewa reservation in Wisconsin, young members, to learn their ancient and nearly forgotten language, of the tribe are using computers

But in this context the phrase ''to learn their ancient and nearly forgotten language'' seems to modify computers, which seems non sensical.

For Option A,

On a Chippewa reservation in Wisconsin, young members of the tribe are using computers for learning their ancient language that was nearly forgotten.

computers for learning this seems to imply function of the computer, and it seems to be correct.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Can you tell me where is the verb in the sentence that I've highlighted in red? There is no verb. it's a fragment sentence. 'to learn' is not modifying computers, it's certainly not a noun modifier, it's modifying the verb ' are using' to present an intention if you break the sentence in Subject-Verb pairs as I've done above, you'd notice that

Yeah Sure, Bolded Parts are Modifier. Underline parts are subject and Verb.


On a Chippewa reservation in Wisconsin, young members(Subject), to learn their ancient and nearly forgotten language, of the tribe are using (Verb)computers

Abhi077

The verb here should be close to the subject because 'to learn their and nearly foreign language' is modifying the verb 'are using'. why are they using computers? because of the intention to learn their language that's what the meaning is

Yeah true If I consider the phrase 'to learn their ancient and nearly forgotten language' as adverbial Phrase

Then it make sense.

Abhi077

Well, that seems quite a fragmented sentence. Better way would be to bring the entire infinitive phrase towards the beginning:

To learn their ancient and nearly forgotten language, young members of the tribe on a Chippewa reservation in Wisconsin, are using computers.


Yes non sensical and hence, it would need a significant flight of imagination, to interpret the sentence in that manner.

On the other hand, something along the following lines would be more ambiguous;

I need my teachers to first learn basics of grammar.

This could mean:
i) I want to learn basics of grammar, and for that, I need my teachers


Or

ii) My teachers should first learn basics of grammar (before they perhaps start teaching me!).

For this purpose I wanted to avoid Option D.

and Select Option A in which the phrase 'computers for learning their ancient language that was nearly forgotten' contains underlined part modifying the Computer , thus modification implies function of Computer.

EducationAisle

Hi Avinash, as I mentioned in my post above, option D cannot be considered ambiguous, because the other interpretation (computers learning their ancient and nearly forgotten language) is non-sensical.

In any case, when two verb forms (use and learn in this sentence) are used together in a sentence, then the first verb determines whether the second verb will be in the gerund form ( for learning) or in the infinitive form (to learn). There are no fixed rules for this, and this is largely an idiom issue.

Having said that, the good part is that in most cases, the infinitive form (to learn) should be used for the second verb form.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses the case of two verb forms appearing together, their application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

Hi GMATNinja,
Hope you are well. Can we eliminate C on the basis of ', which'? ', which' according to Manhattan SC guide is wrong as ', which' can't reprsent a clause. Could you please clear this? TIA!

I hope you're doing well too!

While you're right that "which" won't generally modify an entire clause, in this case you could make the argument that "which" is describing the noun phrase "their ancient language." On its own, that seems reasonable enough.

A better reason to eliminate (C) is to see that its meaning is problematic. Because "they" seems to refer to the "young members of the tribe," it sounds as though it's these youngsters who nearly forgot the language! That doesn't make sense. If you nearly forget something, don't you still know it? Then why would they be using computers to learn a language they already know?

It makes far more sense to describe the language itself as "nearly forgotten," as (D) does. In other words, the ancient language is still around, but it might not be for long, hence the effort to get the young tribe members to learn it.

Because (C) has an illogical meaning and (D) makes perfect sense, (D) is our winner.

I hope that helps!

The correct idiomatic expression is "Use to":
Use to + Noun/Gerund
Use to + Base Verb


On a Chippewa reservation in Wisconsin, young members of the tribe are using computers for learning their ancient language that was nearly forgotten.


(A) for learning their ancient language that was nearly forgotten
Incorrect idiomatic expression

(B) for learning their ancient language that they nearly forgot
Incorrect idiomatic expression.
The Young members did not nearly forget the ancient language, it was the language that was nearly forgotten by the general population.

(C) to learn their ancient language, which they nearly forgot
Incorrect idiomatic expression.
The Young members did not nearly forget the ancient language, it was the language that was nearly forgotten by the general population.
The use of "which" introduces a nonrestrictive clause. We need to specify which ancient language is being talked about. The usage of which can suggest any ancient language.

(D) to learn their ancient and nearly forgotten language

(E) to learn their language that was ancient and nearly forgotten
The language is either ancient or not.
The language cannot stop being ancient in the present, so the use of was is incorrect.

Why are we eliminating A? Is this rule still ironclad in today's era? " for learning" vs "to learn". D has a meaning diff from A.

Indeed, (D) and (A) are slightly different in meaning.

In (A), the past tense verb "was" makes it sound as though the language WAS nearly forgotten at some point in the past So does that mean that the language is alive and well today? If so, why are young members of the tribe using computers to learn it (as opposed to, say, just learning it from other people in the tribe)?

The meaning implied by (D) makes more sense: the youngsters are using computers to learn a nearly forgotten language If the language is nearly forgotten, then it probably isn't spoken or taught by many people in the tribe. That suggests that it would be hard to learn the language without help from computers.

Remember, there's nothing special about choice (A), and we certainly don't have to stick to the meaning suggested by choice (A).

Are there ironclad rules when it comes to idioms? Not really. And even if they were, trying to memorizing them all would be a waste of time and brainpower. Luckily, this is a very old question, and the GMAT seems to have gradually shifted away from relying on idioms as a decision point. For more on idioms, check out our no-BS guide to GMAT idioms.

I hope that helps!