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confusing SC!!!

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by GMATGuruNY » Fri May 12, 2017 3:53 am
ngk4mba3236 wrote:won't it be better if it were : proposed a return to communal ownership of land, what had been a pre-Columbian form of ownership... ? ("to" is dropped here to make the TWO NOUNS in APPOSITION appear exactly side-by-side)

your thoughts please!
If we omit the second to in the OA, we get:
a return to communal ownership of land, what had been a pre-Columbian form of ownership.
Here, the portion in red seems to be in apposition to the noun in blue, conveying that LAND = what had been a pre-Columbian form of ownership.
Not the intended meaning.

Actual OA:
a return to communal ownership of land, to what had been a pre-Columbian form of ownership respected by the Spaniards.
Here, each colored portion serves as an object of the preposition to.
Since the two colored portions serve the same function, it is crystal clear that the red portion is in apposition to the entire blue portion, conveying that COMMUNAL OWNERSHIP OF LAND = what had been a pre-Columbian form of ownership.

An analogous structure appears in SC67 in the OG16:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/can-two-inde ... 83697.html
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by ngk4mba3236 » Fri May 12, 2017 5:32 am
GMATGuruNY wrote:If we omit the second to in the OA, we get:
a return to communal ownership of land, what had been a pre-Columbian form of ownership.
Here, the portion in red seems to be in apposition to the noun in blue, conveying that LAND = what had been a pre-Columbian form of ownership.
Not the intended meaning.
in this case, how we can consider the first NOUN to be only "land" instead of the whole NOUN-phrase "COMMUNAL OWNERSHIP OF LAND" ?

two NOUN-phrases can be in APPOSITION, right ?
GMATGuruNY wrote:Actual OA:
a return to communal ownership of land, to what had been a pre-Columbian form of ownership respected by the Spaniards.
Here, each colored portion serves as an object of the preposition to.
Since the two colored portions serve the same function, it is crystal clear that the red portion is in apposition to the entire blue portion, conveying that COMMUNAL OWNERSHIP OF LAND = what had been a pre-Columbian form of ownership.
got this part.
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by GMATGuruNY » Tue May 16, 2017 5:12 am
ngk4mba3236 wrote:
GMATGuruNY wrote:If we omit the second to in the OA, we get:
a return to communal ownership of land, what had been a pre-Columbian form of ownership.
Here, the portion in red seems to be in apposition to the noun in blue, conveying that LAND = what had been a pre-Columbian form of ownership.
Not the intended meaning.
in this case, how we can consider the first NOUN to be only "land" instead of the whole NOUN-phrase "COMMUNAL OWNERSHIP OF LAND" ?

two NOUN-phrases can be in APPOSITION, right ?
The default referent for COMMA + APPOSITIVE is the nearest preceding noun.
Thus, the default referent for the red appositive above is the nearest preceding noun in blue.
If COMMA + APPOSITIVE is intended to refer to an earlier noun, some aspect of the sentence will make the intention crystal clear.
An OA from GMAC:
The recent birth of a Sumatran rhinoceros in a Cincinnati zoo, the first birth in captivity for that species in over a century, is a landmark development.
Here, the parallel forms in blue make it crystal clear that the first birth serves to refer not to zoo (the nearest preceding noun) but to the recent birth (an earlier noun phrase).
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by ngk4mba3236 » Wed May 17, 2017 9:51 pm
so, the default referent for the appositive (NOUN or NOUN-phrase) will generally be the nearest preceding noun (but NOT the nearest preceding NOUN-phrase).

did I get you right ?
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by GMATGuruNY » Thu May 18, 2017 3:02 am
ngk4mba3236 wrote:so, the default referent for the appositive (NOUN or NOUN-phrase) will generally be the nearest preceding noun (but NOT the nearest preceding NOUN-phrase).

did I get you right ?
Correct.
But as noted in my post above, COMMA + APPOSITIVE may serve to refer to an earlier noun if some aspect of the sentence makes the intention crystal clear.
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