tival placement in a sentence

Question

Hi,

An example sentence:
"Secret copies of journals, that were thought to have been lost, are available now."

Query:
1. In the sentence above,   - does this phrase talk about the "copies" or is the "journals"?
2. Pls write a sentences each if the phrase -   was to talk about
(i) about copies
(ii) journals

Thanks in advance.
DA

someone79 · Answer

"Secret copies of journals, that were thought to have been lost, are available now."

What do you think were lost? Copies or journals?

Relative pronouns: which, that, who, whom, where, when, etc. stand for the noun next to them. In this sentence, the pronoun 'that' refers to journals.

divineacclivity · Answer

Ok, thanks much.

One more query,
If I need to mean - "the copes were lost", would the following be correct:
"The secret copies, that were thought to have been lost , of journals, are available now."

Abhii46 · Answer

Instead of "that" it should be "which" in the modifier. 
"Secret copies of journals, which were thought to have been lost, are available now."

crick20002002 · Answer

The rule for restrictive(that) vs non-restrictive(which) relative clause no longer holds for GMAT. So there is essentially no difference between which and that in the sentence above. The only rule is

essential modifiers are not seperated by comma
non-essential modifiers are seperated by comma.

Crick

Tgt750 · Answer

Here is my try,
1. In the above sentence, 'that were' refers to 'Copies of journals'.
2. Else this sentence should have been written as ' Secret copies of  journals that ... ' no comma between Journals and that.
makes sense?

tival placement in a sentence

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards