What is 'which' modifying?

Question

Hey GMATClubbers,

What is which modifying in the sentence below and how can it be corrected? Trying to understand the subtle nuances of 'which' Thanks :please

The Independence-war of America,  which  was fought between 1775 and 1783, resulted in “American Enlightenment”.

sarvesh93sah · Answer

In this case which modifies independence war of America.

Please note that there is an exception for the touch rule of relative pronoun modifier. The modifier can modify slightly far away noun if the context permits.
To be precise the context should have info which couldn't be placed anywhere in the sentence other than near the noun.

Eg:
I killed the snake, which lived in the burrow near my house.

Which refers to snake

I killed the snake with eggs, which lived in the burrow near my house.

Here, which refers to snake

I will kill the snake with eggs, which lay in the burrow near my house.

Here, meaning is ambiguous.
Which may refer to eggs or snake.

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EducationAisle · Answer

Hi  BlueBook , the above sentence is very  unlikely to be correct  on GMAT (as we have mentioned in the book as well).

A better sentence would be:

America's  Independence-war ,  which  was fought between 1775 and 1783, resulted in “American Enlightenment”.

In the above sentence,  which  is correctly modifying  Independence-war , and hence, is more preferable construct.

An incorrect  official  sentence:

It is called a sea, but the landlocked Caspian is actually the largest lake on Earth, which covers  more than four times the surface area of its closest rival in size, North America's Lake Superior .

The official explanation for this sentence says:

Because "Earth" immediately precedes "which", the sentence appears to say, illogically, that "Earth" covers more than four times the surface area of Lake Superior.

Bottom-line : For the most part, on GMAT,  which  modifies the  nearest grammatically eligible  word, as we have also mentioned in our book. Hence, in case where this is not happening, our suggestion is to keep that option on the back-burner and revisit such option only when there is something significantly wrong with all other answer choices.

BlueBook · Answer

'Which' can also modify the noun phrase 'Independence-war of America' and the sentence is correct as is it is....correct me if I'm wrong...??

EducationAisle · Answer

Very  unlikely  that  which  will modify the entire noun-phrase  Independence-war of America , since (as mentioned in my post above)  which  has a tendency to modify the  nearest grammatically eligible  word (in this case,  America ).

This is similar to the  official  example I cited in my post above, where  which  is  not  modifying the noun phrase  lake on Earth , but only the word  Earth  (again  because  Earth is the  nearest grammatically eligible  word).

Even if you do  not  straight away  reject  these kind of answer choices, keep such options on the  back-burner  and revisit them  only  when there is something  significantly  wrong with all other answer choices.

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

Which is modifying  The Independence-war of America  (perhaps the THE is not included I'm not sure).

VerbalBot · Answer

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What is 'which' modifying?

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