What do "twice" and "double" modify? Please explain.

Question

Dear Expert

1. 20000 people voted in this year's erection, double the number in 2016's.
2. 20000 people voted in this year's erection, twice as many people as in 2016's

According to 2 above sentences, i have two questions.

1. the underline part is noun modifier, adverbial modifier, or absolute phrase?

2. What do they modify?

Thank you in advance.

DisciplinedPrep · Answer

I believe you meant election not erection. Oops!

1. 20000 people voted in this year's election, double the number in 2016's.
2. 20000 people voted in this year's election, twice as many people as in 2016's

Your queries tell me that you need to once again go through the various concepts of modifier, for clarity.

twice as many people as or twice as many as  is Appositive modifier. Appositives must modify the noun immediately before the comma. In your example, the appositive modifies whatever entity is twice the figure before the comma. Since the intended meaning is to modify the number of people not the election, this construction is incorrect.

As adjective,  double  modifies the nearest noun. Hence, even this option has the same error as in the option with twice as many as. You can fix the error by changing the entire modifier into an Participial phrase, such as doubling the number in 2016.

MahmoudFawzy · Answer

Greetings  DisciplinedPrep

at first glance, I think of it as appositive phrase as you mentioned, but I was not familiar with the term 'absolute phrase'. Upon searching, I found it quite similar to the appositive phrase and noticed that the absolute phrase is not necessarily next to the noun it modifies.
Also, from what I read, the appositive phrase " renames a noun phrases ". that's why I started to think that it may be an absolute phrase not an appositive phrase.

this is example of what I read:
 https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/grammar/sentences/what-is-an-absolute-phrase.html 
 https://english.ucalgary.ca/grammar/course/sentence/2_4e.htm

I am not arguing, I am not good in verbal and needs your help.

Mashimoroiiz · Answer

Thank you for your explanation

However, Can the underline part be absolute phrase,which modifies either noun or entire clause?

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

You ask a great question.

Regarding what type of modifiers the underlined portions of the sentences are, they are appositives.

The next part of the question is a little harder to answer.

One take is that the underlined portions are appositives that modify "20,000 people," in which case the underlined portions are noun modifiers. You could test this conclusion by substituting the underlined portion of each sentence for "20,000 people." Doing so, we get:

1. Double the number in 2016's voted in this year's election.
2. Twice as many people as in 2016's voted in this year's election.

In both cases, the sentences make sense, for the most part, with this substitution, a fact that provides support for the idea that the underlined portions are appositives that modify "20,000 people."

Another take is that the underlined portions are abstract appositives that modify the entire preceding clauses.

Either take seems sufficient for understanding how to answer a GMAT Sentence Correction question that involves such a structure.

What do "twice" and "double" modify? Please explain.

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