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505-555 (Easy)|   Comparisons|   Modifiers|   Pronouns|                        
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The eyes of the elephant seal adapt to darkness more quickly than any 28 Aug 2022, 18:46
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mcepeci
Can you eliminate E because of a comma splice ? ( tested, it allows them to hunt efficiently under the gloomy conditions at its feeding depth ....)
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No. The two clauses are connected by the subordinating conjunction "because." So, there's no comma splice issue.
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The eyes of the elephant seal adapt to darkness more quickly than any 29 Aug 2022, 03:34
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mcepeci
Can you eliminate E because of a comma splice ? ( tested, it allows them to hunt efficiently under the gloomy conditions at its feeding depth ....)
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Hello mcepeci,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, no; Option E does not feature a comma splice.

The use of "Because" in Option E makes the first clause a dependent clause, so the use of a comma to join it to an independent clause is not incorrect.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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The eyes of the elephant seal adapt to darkness more quickly than any 19 Sep 2022, 08:01
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GMATNinja linked to a post (https://gmatclub.com/forum/p2103465) that is no longer available regarding the ambiguity of the "it". Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I realize that this question is discussed at nauseum, but I also did not like the use of "it" referring to the subject in a noun phrase. However, it looks like because the "it" is in a comma -ing mod, that this is acceptable.

For instance, if you were to change Choice C to "The eyes of the elephant seal adapt to darkness more quickly than do those of any other animal yet tested, SO IT CAN hunt..." this would definitely be incorrect because the comma -ing modifier is removed and the "it" cannot logically refer to the elephant seal because of the noun phrase?

Any further clarification would be greatly appreciated.
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The eyes of the elephant seal adapt to darkness more quickly than any 20 Sep 2022, 04:56
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woohoo921
GMATNinja linked to a post (https://gmatclub.com/forum/p2103465) that is no longer available regarding the ambiguity of the "it". Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I realize that this question is discussed at nauseum, but I also did not like the use of "it" referring to the subject in a noun phrase. However, it looks like because the "it" is in a comma -ing mod, that this is acceptable.

For instance, if you were to change Choice C to "The eyes of the elephant seal adapt to darkness more quickly than do those of any other animal yet tested, SO IT CAN hunt..." this would definitely be incorrect because the comma -ing modifier is removed and the "it" cannot logically refer to the elephant seal because of the noun phrase?

Any further clarification would be greatly appreciated.
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Hello woohoo921,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, there is no rule stating that a pronoun cannot refer to a noun that is part of a larger noun phrase, so long as there is no ambiguity as to which noun it refers to; so, since "it" cannot refer to "eyes", there is no pronoun error in Option C.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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The eyes of the elephant seal adapt to darkness more quickly than any 20 Sep 2022, 06:42
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woohoo921
GMATNinja linked to a post (https://gmatclub.com/forum/p2103465) that is no longer available regarding the ambiguity of the "it". Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I realize that this question is discussed at nauseum, but I also did not like the use of "it" referring to the subject in a noun phrase. However, it looks like because the "it" is in a comma -ing mod, that this is acceptable.

For instance, if you were to change Choice C to "The eyes of the elephant seal adapt to darkness more quickly than do those of any other animal yet tested, SO IT CAN hunt..." this would definitely be incorrect because the comma -ing modifier is removed and the "it" cannot logically refer to the elephant seal because of the noun phrase?

Any further clarification would be greatly appreciated.

Hello woohoo921,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, there is no rule stating that a pronoun cannot refer to a noun that is part of a larger noun phrase, so long as there is no ambiguity as to which noun it refers to; so, since "it" cannot refer to "eyes", there is no pronoun error in Option C.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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ExpertsGlobal5
Thank you! To clarify, would "it" still correctly refer to the animal and not the eyes if you said ",so it" instead of "allowing it". I am hoping to understand how the -ing modifier influence the meaning of the sentence vs. if you had ",so it". Thank you again :)
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The eyes of the elephant seal adapt to darkness more quickly than any 21 Sep 2022, 05:25
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woohoo921
GMATNinja linked to a post (https://gmatclub.com/forum/p2103465) that is no longer available regarding the ambiguity of the "it". Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I realize that this question is discussed at nauseum, but I also did not like the use of "it" referring to the subject in a noun phrase. However, it looks like because the "it" is in a comma -ing mod, that this is acceptable.

For instance, if you were to change Choice C to "The eyes of the elephant seal adapt to darkness more quickly than do those of any other animal yet tested, SO IT CAN hunt..." this would definitely be incorrect because the comma -ing modifier is removed and the "it" cannot logically refer to the elephant seal because of the noun phrase?

Any further clarification would be greatly appreciated.

Hello woohoo921,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, there is no rule stating that a pronoun cannot refer to a noun that is part of a larger noun phrase, so long as there is no ambiguity as to which noun it refers to; so, since "it" cannot refer to "eyes", there is no pronoun error in Option C.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

ExpertsGlobal5
Thank you! To clarify, would "it" still correctly refer to the animal and not the eyes if you said ",so it" instead of "allowing it". I am hoping to understand how the -ing modifier influence the meaning of the sentence vs. if you had ",so it". Thank you again :)
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Hello woohoo921,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, in this case, replacing the present participle construction with "so it" will not change the meaning, as the the introduction of present participle ("verb+ing"- “allowing” in this case) after comma generally leads to a cause-effect relationship, and the conjunction "so" is also used to show cause-effect relationships.

To understand the concept of "Comma Plus Present Participle for Cause-Effect Relationship" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):


All the best!
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The eyes of the elephant seal adapt to darkness more quickly than any 22 Sep 2022, 06:49
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woohoo921
I realize that this question is discussed at nauseum, but I also did not like the use of "it" referring to the subject in a noun phrase. However, it looks like because the "it" is in a comma -ing mod, that this is acceptable.
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The point of language in general is to enable its users to express, without vagueness or ambiguity, as many ideas as possible. You'll find that this principle underlies every significant grammar rule.

Superficially, this idea may seem to conflict with the existence of grammatical constructions with heavy constraints on their use—e.g., "..., which..." modifiers, which are only allowed to modify a noun that's in front of the comma.
With a bit of additional thought about the function/use of each such construction, though, you should be able to understand the point of its highly circumscribed 'job description' in terms of eradicating ambiguity.

For instance, the strict limitation on "..., which..." modifiers—limiting them to describing a noun—is valuable because it precludes such modifiers from being able to modify the entire preceding clause, thus eradicating a whole class of potential ambiguities.



The relevance of the above idea in this case is that, if you've invented a 'rule of thumb' whose only effect is to make certain phrasings impossible, that 'rule' is extremely unlikely to be valid.

If we were to make a rule out of your statement here about "not liking" certain types of nouns as pronoun referents, that rule would be precisely this sort of negative value-add to the language. Sure enough, there's no such rule.
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The eyes of the elephant seal adapt to darkness more quickly than any 22 Sep 2022, 07:02
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woohoo921

For instance, if you were to change Choice C to "The eyes of the elephant seal adapt to darkness more quickly than do those of any other animal yet tested, SO IT CAN hunt..." this would definitely be incorrect because the comma -ing modifier is removed and the "it" cannot logically refer to the elephant seal because of the noun phrase?
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The pronoun reference here would still be fine, as it is in the original choice C.
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The eyes of the elephant seal adapt to darkness more quickly than any 29 Oct 2022, 13:46
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PurpleDrank3000
I'm still not understanding answer choice C. A pronoun can't refer to a noun in a prepositional phrase. Is answer choice C an exception to this rule? "It" is referring to "the elephant seal", but how is this acceptable?
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I have the same question. Can someone explain please?

Greetings,
Kevin
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The eyes of the elephant seal adapt to darkness more quickly than any 29 Oct 2022, 14:04
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PurpleDrank3000
I'm still not understanding answer choice C. A pronoun can't refer to a noun in a prepositional phrase. Is answer choice C an exception to this rule? "It" is referring to "the elephant seal", but how is this acceptable?

I have the same question. Can someone explain please?

Greetings,
Kevin
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There's no such rule. I'm curious, where did you get the idea that that rule exists? Many TTP users have mentioned that "rule" as well.
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The eyes of the elephant seal adapt to darkness more quickly than any 31 Oct 2022, 05:49
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PurpleDrank3000
I'm still not understanding answer choice C. A pronoun can't refer to a noun in a prepositional phrase. Is answer choice C an exception to this rule? "It" is referring to "the elephant seal", but how is this acceptable?

I have the same question. Can someone explain please?

Greetings,
Kevin
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Hello kevsaf95,

We hope this finds you well.

To clarify, no such rule exists; pronouns can absolutely refer to nouns that are a part of prepositional phrases.

We suspect you may have become confused with a different rule - that if a modifier acts on a noun phrase that contains a prepositional phrase, the modifier will refer to the main noun of the noun phrase, even if the modifier is closer to the noun of the prepositional phrase.

For example: "The King of England who lost to Cromwell was Charles I."

Here, "who" refers to "King", not to "England".

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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The eyes of the elephant seal adapt to darkness more quickly than any 01 Nov 2022, 04:46
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kevsaf95

I have the same question. Can someone explain please?

Greetings,
Kevin
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Hello kevsaf95,


Although you have gotten amazing responses to your query, I just thought f adding my two cents here as well. :blushing:

A pronoun and a noun modifier can very well refer to a noun preceded by a preposition. The only restriction on a noun preceded by a preposition is that it cannot act as the subject of a clause. That's about it. There is no such limitation on a noun preceded by a preposition when it comes to pronoun reference or modification.

In fact, we must check for the logical modification of a noun modifier with the immediate, preceding noun that can be preceded by a proposition. When the noun modification does not work in this scenario, then only we look for far-away noun modification, in which the noun modifier modifies the head of the noun phrase.


Hope this helps. :)
Thanks.
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The eyes of the elephant seal adapt to darkness more quickly than any 01 Nov 2022, 06:59
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Hi,
Thanks for the explanation

What about the possive nouns? For example, what if the question was like this?:

(C) The elephant seal's eyes seal adapt to darkness more quickly than do those of any other animal yet tested, allowing it to hunt efficiently under the gloomy conditions at its feeding depths of between 300 and 700 meters.

Would it be ok, too? Or the rule just works with nouns preceded by a preposition?
Pd: which is noun preceded by the preposition in the original sentence? "The eyes" or "the elephant"?

Greetings,
Kevin

egmat
kevsaf95

I have the same question. Can someone explain please?

Greetings,
Kevin


Hello kevsaf95


Although you have gotten amazing responses to your query, I just thought f adding my two cents here as well. :blushing:

A pronoun and a noun modifier can very well refer to a noun preceded by a preposition. The only restriction on a noun preceded by a preposition is that it cannot act as the subject of a clause. That's about it. There is no such limitation on a noun preceded by a preposition when it comes to pronoun reference or modification.

In fact, we must check for the logical modification of a noun modifier with the immediate, preceding noun that can be preceded by a proposition. When the noun modification does not work in this scenario, then only we look for far-away noun modification, in which the noun modifier modifies the head of the noun phrase.


Hope this helps. :)
Thanks.
Shraddha
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The eyes of the elephant seal adapt to darkness more quickly than any 01 Nov 2022, 07:23
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kevsaf95

Hey Kevin ,

Greetings.

Below is a link to an interesting official question. Give it an honest attempt once before reading my response further.

Question: https://gmatclub.com/forum/although-she ... l#p1549650


Now that you've solved the question above, I'm sure you've understood why I directed you to it. The following is my answer to your query.


As per the "rules", a pronoun should only refer to and replace a noun. This means, strictly speaking, a pronoun must not refer to a possessive noun.


However, the GMAT is known to have flouted this rule, as in the question above.


So, what's the takeaway? Although the rule is that a pronoun must not refer to a possessive noun, the GMAT is wishy-washy when it comes to pronoun rules. Hence, always keep this and other pronoun ambiguity rules at the bottom of the pecking order. Always look for more deterministic errors and never let this rule be the first reason for eliminating answer choices.

One thing is certain though, the GMAT always relies on LOGIC to resolve pronoun issues. So, if you go by the meaning-based approach, you should be fine.


I hope this helps improve your understanding.


Happy Learning!

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The eyes of the elephant seal adapt to darkness more quickly than any 22 Nov 2024, 08:17
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