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Correct placement of prepositional phrases

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Correct placement of prepositional phrases

by tnaim » Sun Aug 22, 2010 3:31 pm
I would like to know what the appropriate rules are on placing prepositional phrases.
This question has triggered my quest to find out where I should be putting prepositional phrases.

The nephew of Pliny the Elder wrote the only eyewitness account of the great eruption of Vesuvius in two letters to the historian Tacitus.

(A) The nephew of Pliny the Elder wrote the only eyewitness account of the great eruption of Vesuvius in two letters to the historian Tacitus.
(B) To the historian Tacitus, the nephew of Pliny the Elder wrote two letters, being the only eyewitness accounts of the great eruption of Vesuvius.
(C) The only eyewitness account is in two letters by the nephew of Pliny the Elder writing to the historian Tacitus an account of the great eruption of Vesuvius.
(D) Writing the only eyewitness account, Pliny the Elder's nephew accounted for the great eruption of Vesuvius in two letters to the historian Tacitus.
(E) In two letters to the historian Tacitus, the nephew of Pliny the Elder wrote the only eyewitness account of the great eruption of Vesuvius

OG explanation indicates that the correct placement of the prepositional phrase in this sentence is the key to answering this question correctly. The OG explains that placement of "in two letters" in (A)suggests that the Vesuvius erupted in the letters themselves.
the OG also adds that the extended sequence of prepositional phrases in (C) makes the meaning unclear. Would you please elaborate on how this is so?the sentence seems pretty clear to me.
Would you please elaborate on where prepositional phrases should be placed in general? and how does this change if you have multiple prepositional phrases?
the OA is
e
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by Stuart@KaplanGMAT » Sun Aug 22, 2010 11:21 pm
tnaim wrote:I would like to know what the appropriate rules are on placing prepositional phrases.
This question has triggered my quest to find out where I should be putting prepositional phrases.

The nephew of Pliny the Elder wrote the only eyewitness account of the great eruption of Vesuvius in two letters to the historian Tacitus.

(A) The nephew of Pliny the Elder wrote the only eyewitness account of the great eruption of Vesuvius in two letters to the historian Tacitus.
(B) To the historian Tacitus, the nephew of Pliny the Elder wrote two letters, being the only eyewitness accounts of the great eruption of Vesuvius.
(C) The only eyewitness account is in two letters by the nephew of Pliny the Elder writing to the historian Tacitus an account of the great eruption of Vesuvius.
(D) Writing the only eyewitness account, Pliny the Elder's nephew accounted for the great eruption of Vesuvius in two letters to the historian Tacitus.
(E) In two letters to the historian Tacitus, the nephew of Pliny the Elder wrote the only eyewitness account of the great eruption of Vesuvius
Here's the rule for all modifiers, be they single words or longer phrases: modifiers must be placed as close as possible to whatever they modify.

In the sentence posted, we need to make sure that the nephew writes the letters, the letter writer is the nephew of Pliny the Elder, the letters were sent to Tacitus and the eyewitness account is of the eruption of Vesuvius. Only (E) clearly expresses all of those relationships.

(C) uses no internal punctuation at all - stringing together so many phrases without any commas is unlikely to ever be correct.
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by lunarpower » Fri Sep 10, 2010 6:13 am
stuart's post is a nice summary, and he has included a helpful takeaway (place the modifiers as close as possible to the things they modify).
do note, though, that "as close as possible" can sometimes, though infrequently, still be pretty far away.

specifically, the problem with (a) is that it seems to be saying that vesuvius actually erupted in a couple of letters!
that's not ok.

the only part of stuart's post that i don't find completely accurate is this:
Stuart Kovinsky wrote:
(C) uses no internal punctuation at all - stringing together so many phrases without any commas is unlikely to ever be correct.
i don't know for sure one way or the other, but i wouldn't be so sure of that.

for one, check out OG11 #118, in which the correct answer is
Students in the metropolitan school district are so lacking in math skills that it will be difficult to absorb them into a city economy becoming ever more dependent on information-based industries.
that one also lacks any sort of internal punctuation (and it's even longer than the choices here), but it's still correct.

is there any empirical evidence one way or the other? i.e., has anyone collected any data on the frequency of punctuation vs. correctness of choices, to facilitate guessing?
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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by fast_turtle » Fri Oct 08, 2010 8:50 am
Hi Ron / Stuart

What kind of modifier is this ?
(E) In two letters to the historian Tacitus, the nephew of Pliny the Elder wrote the only eyewitness account of the great eruption of Vesuvius.

In two letters, X wrote Y.

Is't "In two letters" modifies X ? Does it not mean that "the nephew is in two letters" ?
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by bdevas01 » Fri Oct 08, 2010 9:05 am
lunarpower wrote:stuart's post is a nice summary, and he has included a helpful takeaway (place the modifiers as close as possible to the things they modify).
do note, though, that "as close as possible" can sometimes, though infrequently, still be pretty far away.

specifically, the problem with (a) is that it seems to be saying that vesuvius actually erupted in a couple of letters!
that's not ok.

the only part of stuart's post that i don't find completely accurate is this:
Stuart Kovinsky wrote:
(C) uses no internal punctuation at all - stringing together so many phrases without any commas is unlikely to ever be correct.
i don't know for sure one way or the other, but i wouldn't be so sure of that.

for one, check out OG11 #118, in which the correct answer is
Students in the metropolitan school district are so lacking in math skills that it will be difficult to absorb them into a city economy becoming ever more dependent on information-based industries.
that one also lacks any sort of internal punctuation (and it's even longer than the choices here), but it's still correct.

is there any empirical evidence one way or the other? i.e., has anyone collected any data on the frequency of punctuation vs. correctness of choices, to facilitate guessing?


Awesome point, but aren't the directions for the SC section to choose the best possible answer out of the five choices? A lot of times all 5 answers are horribly structured and worded, but one is worded slightly less horrible. So in your example, question # 118 probably had 4 other choices which really stunk...right?
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by lunarpower » Fri Oct 08, 2010 5:41 pm
bdevas01 wrote:Awesome point, but aren't the directions for the SC section to choose the best possible answer out of the five choices? A lot of times all 5 answers are horribly structured and worded, but one is worded slightly less horrible. So in your example, question # 118 probably had 4 other choices which really stunk...right?
yes ... but i'm not sure what that has to do with the current discussion.

that example was merely meant as a counterexample to the claim that "long sentences without internal punctuation are wrong". i just happened to recall that particular example off the top of my head; i'm sure there are others.

stuart's original comment does, however, suggest an interesting angle for research into the official problems -- if so inclined, one could conduct a formal study into the correlation between correct/incorrect and the frequency of internal punctuation.
my instinct is to think that there would be little correlation -- certainly not enough of a correlation to produce a reliable guessing method -- but i can't be sure unless a study is conducted.

does anyone know whether there are any such studies?
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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by bdevas01 » Fri Oct 08, 2010 5:52 pm
lunarpower wrote:
bdevas01 wrote:Awesome point, but aren't the directions for the SC section to choose the best possible answer out of the five choices? A lot of times all 5 answers are horribly structured and worded, but one is worded slightly less horrible. So in your example, question # 118 probably had 4 other choices which really stunk...right?
yes ... but i'm not sure what that has to do with the current discussion.

that example was merely meant as a counterexample to the claim that "long sentences without internal punctuation are wrong". i just happened to recall that particular example off the top of my head; i'm sure there are others.

stuart's original comment does, however, suggest an interesting angle for research into the official problems -- if so inclined, one could conduct a formal study into the correlation between correct/incorrect and the frequency of internal punctuation.
my instinct is to think that there would be little correlation -- certainly not enough of a correlation to produce a reliable guessing method -- but i can't be sure unless a study is conducted.

does anyone know whether there are any such studies?
Ron, Stuart claimed that such sentences are unlikely to be correct.


Second becuase punctuation is not tested on the GMAT SC, further debate will yield information that contribute nominally to one's score, AT BEST..
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by lunarpower » Fri Oct 08, 2010 5:54 pm
fast_turtle wrote:Hi Ron / Stuart

What kind of modifier is this ?
(E) In two letters to the historian Tacitus, the nephew of Pliny the Elder wrote the only eyewitness account of the great eruption of Vesuvius.

In two letters, X wrote Y.

Is't "In two letters" modifies X ? Does it not mean that "the nephew is in two letters" ?
the short answer is no.

the long answer is:
if a sentence STARTS with a prepositional phrase followed by a comma, then that prepositional phrase will pretty much always modify the CLAUSE/ACTION that follows.

so, in the sentence above, "in two letters to the historian tacitus" modifies the following action ("...wrote the only eyewitness account..."). that makes perfect sense.

i'm sure this is a hard rule, since i can't currently think of any examples to the contrary (i.e., i can't think of any examples in which prepositional phrase + comma refers to the following noun).

--

prepositional phrases in other places are more slippery fish -- some of them can modify EITHER the noun or the clause, depending on the surrounding context.

for instance:

i read the book on the table
--> in this case, "on the table" modifies the noun (book).

i read the book on the subway
--> in this case, "on the subway" modifies the action/clause ((i) read the book).

in these kinds of instances, you have to do two things --
(1) use your common sense to determine the meaning of the sentence, and check whether the attribution of the prepositional phrase can work (either with the noun or with the clause);
and
(2) make sure that the meaning of the sentence is clear enough. (note that each of the above two examples, while technically ambiguous from the strictest possible standpoint, is totally clear in its meaning).
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by lunarpower » Fri Oct 08, 2010 6:03 pm
bdevas01 wrote:Ron, Stuart claimed that such sentences are unlikely to be correct.
dude, i know, but, two things:

1) this board (and every other internet board, and every other group of people, in the world) is full of people who will read "unlikely" and mistakenly take away the idea that it's impossible.
for instance, i remember a bunch of threads a couple of years ago on which we wrote, cautiously enough, that sentences containing the word "being" were unlikely to be correct.
that's all we wrote -- "unlikely" -- but a whole bunch of posters took that to mean that they should just go ahead and cross out every answer choice containing the word "being", and then an unholy ruckus broke out over OG12 #101 (in which the correct answer choice starts with "being").
so my counter-warning is best taken as a word of caution for posters like that, who will tend to overgeneralize anything that might be posted.

and
2) i'm not sure whether it really is unlikely -- i was inquiring whether stuart had any empirical basis upon which to make that claim, or whether it was a pure hunch.
a lot of SC is a numbers game, so, if there really is a propensity for the correct answer to go one way or the other, it's well worth knowing.
i.e., you wrote
Second becuase punctuation is not tested on the GMAT SC, further debate will yield information that contribute nominally to one's score, AT BEST..
with all due respect, this isn't true, if there turns out to be a definite pattern here.
for instance, if stuart has done research that shows that e.g. only 5% of answer choices with no internal punctuation are correct (vis-a-vis 20% for randomly chosen answer choices), then that's an awfully powerful guessing tool.
so, no, the capital letters "AT BEST" here are not necessarily true.
if it turns out that stuart's hunch is wrong, and that choices lacking internal punctuation are just as likely to be correct as are choices containing that punctuation, then yeah it won't help. on the other hand, if there is empirical evidence to support stuart's contention, then that could definitely make a score contribution that's more than nominal -- first of all, there are many, many problems containing such answer choices, and, second, such choices tend to occur on really long problems (= the exact type of problem that many students are most afraid of / have the most trouble with).

so let's see whether there's evidence.
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by mundasingh123 » Sun Oct 10, 2010 8:33 am
lunarpower wrote:[the long answer is:
if a sentence STARTS with a prepositional phrase followed by a comma, then that prepositional phrase will pretty much always modify the CLAUSE/ACTION that follows.

so, in the sentence above, "in two letters to the historian tacitus" modifies the following action ("...wrote the only eyewitness account..."). that makes perfect sense.
i'm sure this is a hard rule, since i can't currently think of any examples to the contrary (i.e., i can't think of any examples in which prepositional phrase + comma refers to the following noun).
--> in this case, "on the table" modifies the noun (book).
i read the book on the subway
--> in this case, "on the subway" modifies the action/clause ((i) read the book).

in these kinds of instances, you have to do two things --
(1) use your common sense to determine the meaning of the sentence, and check whether the attribution of the prepositional phrase can work (either with the noun or with the clause);
and
Ron I have the following 2 questions.
(D) Writing the only eyewitness account, Pliny the Elder's nephew accounted for the great eruption of Vesuvius in two letters to the historian Tacitus
1)Here we can use common sense to make out that the eruption did not take place in the 2 letters,then why are we rejecting the answer choice.
2)What does a participial modifier that begins a sentence modify ? action / noun?
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by mundasingh123 » Sun Oct 10, 2010 8:40 am
since i have a problem with my browser , i am posting another reply.
Ron you said that a beginning prepositional modifier modifies action.What if the same prepositional modifier is relocated to somewhere else in the sentence , does what it modify depend on its proximity to the nearest noun.
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by uwhusky » Sun Oct 10, 2010 8:41 am
lunarpower wrote: stuart's original comment does, however, suggest an interesting angle for research into the official problems -- if so inclined, one could conduct a formal study into the correlation between correct/incorrect and the frequency of internal punctuation.
my instinct is to think that there would be little correlation -- certainly not enough of a correlation to produce a reliable guessing method -- but i can't be sure unless a study is conducted.

does anyone know whether there are any such studies?
Punctuation makes horrible wildcard and requires actual work put in to conduct an adequate research =(.

Maybe we should redirect those guys doing the GMAT Prep R&D into this project, at least then they'll be doing something more worthwhile.
Yep.
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by lunarpower » Mon Oct 11, 2010 5:08 pm
mundasingh123 wrote:since i have a problem with my browser , i am posting another reply.
Ron you said that a beginning prepositional modifier modifies action.What if the same prepositional modifier is relocated to somewhere else in the sentence , does what it modify depend on its proximity to the nearest noun.
prepositional phrases, especially when they are not set off by commas, are pretty flexible; they can generally modify either nouns or actions. (by contrast, prepositional phrases that are set off by commas generally modify actions.)
did you get a chance to see my post above?

here's a quote:
i read the book on the table
--> in this case, "on the table" modifies the noun (book).

i read the book on the subway
--> in this case, "on the subway" modifies the action/clause ((i) read the book).

in these kinds of instances, you have to do two things --
(1) use your common sense to determine the meaning of the sentence, and check whether the attribution of the prepositional phrase can work (either with the noun or with the clause);
and
(2) make sure that the meaning of the sentence is clear enough. (note that each of the above two examples, while technically ambiguous from the strictest possible standpoint, is totally clear in its meaning).
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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by lunarpower » Mon Oct 11, 2010 5:13 pm
mundasingh123 wrote: (D) Writing the only eyewitness account, Pliny the Elder's nephew accounted for the great eruption of Vesuvius in two letters to the historian Tacitus
1)Here we can use common sense to make out that the eruption did not take place in the 2 letters,then why are we rejecting the answer choice.
i guess because it's still ambiguous, and the first reading is incorrect. (in general, the default reading of these sorts of modifiers involves attaching them to the nearest possible referent.)
fyi, this is not an issue on which the official materials seem to be completely consistent. however, if you have a situation in which one choice is ambiguous and another is not, then it goes without saying that you should pick the one that is not ambiguous.

for another example, see #111 in the 2nd ed verbal supplement OG (i think it's 112 in the first edition), in which (a) is grammatically ok but ambiguous, but (c) is unambiguous.
2)What does a participial modifier that begins a sentence modify ? action / noun?
what kind of participle?
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by mundasingh123 » Mon Oct 11, 2010 11:22 pm
lunarpower wrote:
mundasingh123 wrote:
2)What does a participial modifier that begins a sentence modify ? action / noun?
what kind of participle?
sorry ron,I should have clarified this
A beginning present participle or a past participle
A present participle
swimming with swift strokes,John crossed over to the other side of the pool.

Who is taking advantage?John.so is "swimming with swift strokes" modifying John
In what manner did he cross ? swimming with swift strokes.So is "swimming with swift strokes" modifying action "crossed"

A past participle:
Compelled by the majority of the oppositional party,the senator decided to support the motion.
Here who is compelled ? John
But cant "Compelled by the majority" also modify "decided to support" as "compelled" describes the reason behind the decision to support.
Thanks ,Ron
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