JonShukhrat wrote:
DmitryFarber wrote:
The GMAT is very particular about getting modifiers in the right place. Specifically, we try to get noun modifiers right next to the noun they're modifying. So what is "one of the proudest of family legends"? The digging of the tunnel. A, B, and D don't get the modifier close enough to "digging." C has other problems, but E solves the problem another way. It makes the modifier into part of the main sentence core.
So to answer your objection, sunny91, although we can sometimes have two consecutive modifiers without a conjunction, that's not what we have in E. The core is "One of the proudest of legends is the digging," and only the intervening part ("remembered . . . Muslims") is a modifier.
DmitryFarber Sir,
I know that essential vs. non-essential modifier split shouldn't be a dispositive one. But still there are some SC problems in which this split hugely helps come to the correct answer. In E, what is in between commas is a non-essential mod because of its placement, but its meaning still seems to be essential to understand the whole picture and who thinks of this legend to be an epic (or at least why it’s a family legend). So, could you please elaborate on why we can’t eliminate E for turning that part of information into non-essential?
Thank you very much beforehand.
Well, that’s not the first time I am answering my post on my own. Perhaps that’s how gmatclub teaches me to begin to talk to myself, somehow feeling a bit schizophrenic. So, I discussed option E with Myself to a greater extent, and We unanimously decided that what is in between commas isn’t always an inessential modifier. Actually, we found enough evidence that the notion of “essentiality vs. inessentiality” is relevant to only noun modifiers, not adverbial.
In other words, adverbial modifiers such as COMMA + VERBED and COMMA + VERBING have an important role regardless of their position in a sentence. Hence, even if they follow just a noun phrase and seem to modify only it, they still have to make sense with the gist of the sentence. Here are a couple of examples from
RonPurewal himself:
- Darren, standing over seven feet tall, is one of the school's best physics students.
(this sentence is nonsense: there is no plausible relationship between Darren’s height and his knowledge of physics.)
- Darren, standing over seven feet tall, is one of the school's best basketball players.
(this sentence is sensible, since it's quite reasonable that Darren’s height contributes to his basketball prowess.)
If we replace COMMA + VERBING with a noun modifier, then that kind of relationship isn’t mandatory, so the below sentence is correct:
- Darren, who stands over seven feet tall, is one of the school's best physics students.
Now, note that the below two sentences have similar meanings:
1. Darren,
standing over seven feet tall, is one of the school's best basketball players.
2.
Standing over seven feet tall, Darren is one of the school's best basketball players.
The same is true about the below two sentences:
1. James,
exhausted from a log day of work, collapsed onto the coach and soon fell asleep.
2.
Exhausted from a log day of work, James collapsed onto the coach and soon fell asleep.
You can notice that COMMA + VERBED in the first sentence modifies James, but it also explains why he collapsed and fell asleep. So, no doubt that it is an adverbial modifier even though it follows just a noun phrase and is set off by commas.
Small conclusion: while reading such a sentence as E, we CANNOT cross off COMMA + VERB set off by commas, as we usually do with such a noun modifier. A noun mod set off by commas doesn’t change the meaning when removed, but such an adverbial mod continues to give relevant information about the sentence it’s inserted into, explaining the cause, result, or background of the main action. That’s why sentence 1 and sentence 2 above have similar meanings, and E can be read as below:
Remembered almost as an epic among America’s 12,000 Bosnian Muslims, one of the proudest of family legends is the digging of Chicago’s subway tunnels in the early 1900s.
Final conclusion: Now it’s clear that “Remembered almost as an epic among America’s 12,000 Bosnian Muslims” in E isn’t an inessential modifier. As an adverbial mod, it gives additional description to the whole sentence and thus is important to the overall gist.
Phew, we did a good job, I and me))
_________________
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“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”GMAC:
“I fear not the aspirant who has practiced 10,000 questions, but I fear the aspirant who has learnt the most out of every single question.” 
31 Dec 2019, 05:41
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