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RonTargetTestPrep
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Research has shown that when speaking, individuals who have been blind 25 Aug 2022, 23:09
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Hi Ron, I did not understand fully here.

My thinking is -research has shown two things:

1. ''that when speaking, individuals who have been blind from birth and have thus never seen anyone gesture nonetheless make hand motions just as frequently and in the same way as sighted people do

AND

2. that they will gesture even when conversing with another blind person''

Since these two are standalone things, ideally ''they'' in 2nd part should not have a reference i.e individuals, in the 1st part.

If I read the 2nd part alone, it should be clear to me what is it talking about instead of taking help from 1st part.

This is how I understood the idea of parallelism.
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Are you saying that you don't think it's OK to use a pronoun in the second parallel part?

If that's what you're saying, then... nope. You'll have to recalibrate that judgment. It's perfectly fine for a pronoun in the second parallel part to refer to a noun in the first one.

Please refer to this problem as well. Unless I'm misunderstanding you, I think you might erroneously think you're committed to writing "the bricks" again (instead of "them") at the end of the correct answer choice.
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Research has shown that when speaking, individuals who have been blind 25 Aug 2022, 23:19
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hadimadi
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Talking about two parallel clauses using 'THAT' in A]

1. Research has shown that when speaking, individuals who have been blind from birth


2. Research has shown that they will gesture even when conversing with another blind person.

THESE two should stand independently, however in part 2, we don't have any precedent for 'they' Isn't this against the rule of parallelism

"they" = individuals who have been blind from birth and who thus have never seen anyone gesture. This group is the subject of both clauses.

The first of the two parallel clauses has a short initial modifier ("When speaking, ...") attached to it. That's just a modifier; the subject and verb of that first clause are "individuals ... make ...".
\


Hi,

then we would have

Research has shown that

1. individuals when speaking
2. , and that they

The second ’they’ still doesn’t have a clear subject?

Thanks
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------

The point is that "when speaking" is NOT part of the referent for the pronoun they—because it CAN'T be.

ProNOUNS stand for NOUNS.
Often, a pronoun stands for a noun that's encumbered with context/descriptors/modifiers. If the pronoun is it or they (or another form thereof, e.g., its, them, their, etc), then that pronoun will definitely stand for the noun WITH all of that context and all of those modifiers.

What I hope is clear, though, is that a NOUN referent can only 'carry' / 'keep' modifiers THAT ACTUALLY MODIFY THE NOUN!
A noun referent can't keep a modifier that's modifying something else entirely.

The modifier "when speaking" can't modify a noun—it can only modify the ACTION of a whole CLAUSE.
Therefore, the modifier "when speaking" modifies an ACTION / CLAUSE. It's altogether unrelated/irrelevant to the noun "individuals", or to any other noun.
Therefore, that modifier is not, and cannot possibly be, part of the referent for "they".
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Research has shown that when speaking, individuals who have been blind 24 Sep 2023, 05:59
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