Sentence Correction

You're right. Recently, I found OE contradictory to itself from place to place.

lunarpower wrote: "¢ Yes, there is a "comma + __ing" that can attach to a noun.
E.g.,
Valéry, engrossed in his book, did not notice that his plane was leaving.
"Engrossed in his book" clearly describes Valéry.
Still--just as in the case of the other comma + __ing constructions--there must be a definite and obvious relationship to the rest of the clause. Here, there is: Because he was so preoccupied with the book, Valéry missed his flight even though he was sitting right there in the airport.

Well, this reminds me of another similar construction "comma + _ed".
I see it is normally treated as a noun modifier that modifies the immediately preceding noun. But somehow, I think there's a difference between "comma + _ed" and "_ed without the comma" that the former indicates there's a logical relationship between the past participle phrase and the main clause it touches.

E.g. OG13 SC 106 - Originally developped for ..., a technique ..., is finding uses in ...

i.e. Although it was originally developed for ..., a technique that ... is finding uses in other fields as well.

If so, should we treat the "comma + _ed" as an adverbial modifier as well? At least a noun modifier, especially a nonessential one separated by the comma,
should not serve a logical relationship between two parts of the sentence, as I supposed.

How to see it then?

iongmat wrote:This is very interesting discussion.

Hello magic monkey, can you let me know why you say that the -ing forms in OG12 SC 30 and OG13 SC 62 can be interpreted as as adverbial modifiers? It seems to me that -ing forms here are directly modifying the nouns "animal-hide shields" and "the armv of terra-cotta warriors" respectively.

I in fact believe that "gathering information...." is an adverbial modifier here:

Like the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth gathering information about its size and the curvature of its surface, astronomers have made new observations that show with startling directness the large-scale geometry of the universe.

Ron, I had a question about the following correct sentence:

The original building and loan associations were organized as limited life funds, whose members made monthly payments on their share subscriptions and then took turns drawing on the funds for home mortgages.

"drawing" is a "-ing" modifier without a preceding comma. So, as per my knowledge, it should either modify the preceding noun "turns" or some preceding "noun phrase". But, here it does not make sense for "drawing" to modify "turns" (because "turns" are not drawing on funds) or any other preceding "noun phrase".

Can you advice.

Hi iongmat,

Definitely the "comma + _ing" could serve as an adverbial modifier. Just in the above posts, Ron put a NO to the possibility of a noun modifier.

I agree with him if OE are not necessarily correct and for Ron has an over-20-year expertise on GMAT and formal writing. Plus, no official GMAT sentences show comma + _ing as so.

To your specific question, as I know, comma + _ing modifies the preceding clause as well as the main Subject+Verb pair of the clause, but of course, the subject of the main clause serves as the logical subject to _ing.

in OG12 SC 30 -- shields were essential items, protecting warriors ...,
-- protecting warriors is the effect of the fact that shields were essential items, though shields is the subject/agent of the action protecting warriors.

in OG13 SC 62 -- Rivaling the pyramids ..., the army of terra-cotta warriors ..., is ... years old and took ... to complete.
-- Although the army is the agent of the action rivaling, Rivaling the pyramids actually modifies the whole following main clause and its Subject + Verb pair. (It doesn't matter if someone see _ing + comma as a noun modifier for the action agent doesn't change in either way.)

There's a logical relationship between two parts of the sentence.
i.e.
The army of terra-cotta warriors rivals the pyramids ..., for it is ... years old and took ... to complete.
or
As is/are key competitiveness/features for rivaling the pyramids ..., the army of terra-cotta warriors is ... years old and took ... to complete.

Hi Ron, if there's any misunderstanding above, please point it out. Thanks.

lunarpower wrote:There IS one exception of which you should be aware, though.
Namely, if comma + __ing follows only a noun, rather than a full sentence/clause, then it modifies only that noun. (It can't do anything else!)

E.g.,
Roberta, having just finished her first marathon, collapsed onto the floor.
Here, "having..." just describes Roberta. However, it still needs to have a fundamental relationship to the following part (i.e., she collapsed because she had just run 26.2 miles).

Or look at OG 13th #25.

Hi Ron, I've reviewed your replies again.

in this case, should we take comma having finished as an adverbial modifier as well?

To compare it with the comma Ved, I felt most of the time, the modifier with a comma would have a clear relationship with the action of the rest clause.

It seems so in your example as well:
After Roberta had just finished the marathon, he collapsed onto the floor.

lunarpower wrote:

magic monkey wrote:Got it, and including is actually a preposition.

I know I say this way too often, but, this sort of understanding (involving classifications/categories) shouldn't be your end goal, because it's awkward and clumsy.

I.e., your goal is to distinguish correct usage from incorrect usage immediately. If you have to think in terms of grammar terms (preposition, etc.), and then translate those terms into the specifics of the sentence at hand... well, that's going to take a while. And it's going to be much, much harder.
(Take a sentence from your next conversation with a friend. Try to "break it down" grammatically-and then think about how long it would take you to construct that sentence if you thought explicitly about that breakdown. A long, long, long time.)

So, you should think of this sort of understanding as an intermediate state.
The end goal is to remember workable examples. You should just memorize a few simple sentences using "including" correctly.
Then, when you see it in a sentence, you can call those examples to mind, and you'll immediately be able to tell (by analogy) whether the sentence at hand is correct or incorrect.

This is not limited to "including", of course--it's the way you should eventually try to learn everything. And not just on the GMAT, but in life in general.
Experience >>> rules.

I need to tell you that I love this kind of instruction better. Thanks, Ron!

lunar power wrote:

E.g.,
Roberta, having just finished her first marathon, collapsed onto the floor.
Here, "having..." just describes Roberta. However, it still needs to have a fundamental relationship to the following part (i.e., she collapsed because she had just run 26.2 miles).

"¢Â Describes Roberta
"¢Â Must have a relationship to the whole idea of the sentence.

I don't really know the grammar terms (and don't see any reason to introduce them anyway)... but, there it is.

Thanks Ron, I have got the point.
Please don't feel annoyed if I want to make a double check on another construction - the "comma + _ed".

So when we are using the comma Ved, it doesn't have to follow the 2nd rule above, which is, to have a relationship to the whole idea of the sentence.
The comma Ved just modifies the noun/noun phrase it touches, doesn't it?

lunarpower wrote:

magic monkey wrote:Thanks Ron, I have got the point.
Please don't feel annoyed if I want to make a double check on another construction - the "comma + _ed".

So when we are using the comma Ved, it doesn't have to follow the 2nd rule above, which is, to have a relationship to the whole idea of the sentence.
The comma Ved just modifies the noun/noun phrase it touches, doesn't it?

I think you're right here.

Remember, "__ed" is a passive construction, normally representing an action done on or to the subject. So, in most cases, it's not possible for such a construction to be intimately connected to the subject+action of the preceding clause (which describes something that the subject is or does).

I think you're more likely to see "__ed" modifying a noun that's directly before it. But, of course, there may be exceptions.

Thanks Ron! I will keep an eye on that.

lunarpower wrote:It can describe turns.

They took turns.
- Turns doing what? / What kind of turns?
Turns drawing xxxxx stuff

Hello Ron, I came across another sentence:

In the mid-1920's the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company was the scene of an intensive series of experiments investigating the effects that changes in working conditions would have on workers' performance.

Here again, the "experiments" were not investigating the effects; but we can think of it as...experiments for what? Experiments for investigating the effect.

Is this approach correct?

Also, in these kind of questions, does the phrase "investigating the effects...." come under the category of "adverb modifiers", wherein "investigating" would not modify a specific word?

Thanks in advance.

lunarpower wrote:Also of note--

If you peruse the OG explanations, it will become clear that they aren't written by the same people who write the questions.
Specifically, it's clear that ...
... gmac's best writers write and/or edit the questions (and don't spend their time writing explanations);
... their less capable writers write the explanations.

This makes perfect sense from an economic perspective (give the less important work to the less capable people). Moreover, it's clearly the ideal situation; you wouldn't want the problems to come from the B-list writers.

But, you have to realize that the explanations are often imperfect.
Sometimes they're just straight-up wrong.
(If an explanation is ever limited to "that's awkward" or "that's wordy", then it is overlooking at least one actual error that the explanation writer just didn't know how to explain. After all, "wordy" and "awkward", while undesirable, are not actually errors.)

#True

I was told by GMAC that they had to outsource the explanations as they initially created only the questions

https://gmat.crackverbal.com/gmat-og-explanations/

Arun

iongmat wrote:

lunarpower wrote:It can describe turns.

They took turns.
- Turns doing what? / What kind of turns?
Turns drawing xxxxx stuff

Hello Ron, I came across another sentence:

In the mid-1920's the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company was the scene of an intensive series of experiments investigating the effects that changes in working conditions would have on workers' performance.

Here again, the "experiments" were not investigating the effects; but we can think of it as...experiments for what? Experiments for investigating the effect.

Is this approach correct?

Also, in these kind of questions, does the phrase "investigating the effects...." come under the category of "adverb modifiers", wherein "investigating" would not modify a specific word?

Thanks in advance.

Hi, iongmat, as far as I know, all Ving modifiers without the comma are a noun modifier.