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princeton question -eskimo culture

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princeton question -eskimo culture

by dj_vinayak » Sun Jun 27, 2010 8:11 am
In eskimo culture,equipment is designed for use by almost all members of their tribe;for instance,children and adults are able to maneuver kayaks because of their light weight and ingenious construction.

(e)children and adults are able to maneuver the kayaks becaus of these crafts'

OA is e
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by paes » Sun Jun 27, 2010 8:15 am
Write all the choice and your doubt then it will be easy to answer.

Anyway the given choice is wrong.
Because after ; there should be an independent clause.

While
for instance,children and adults are able to maneuver kayaks because of their light weight and ingenious construction.

is not a independent clause.
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by hardik.jadeja » Sun Jun 27, 2010 8:28 am
I think the original sentence is wrong because 'their' could refer to kayaks as well as children and adults. So there is pronoun ambiguity in the sentence.
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by dj_vinayak » Sun Jun 27, 2010 9:37 am
hardik.jadeja wrote:I think the original sentence is wrong because 'their' could refer to kayaks as well as children and adults. So there is pronoun ambiguity in the sentence.
but isnt the pronoun supposed to refer to the antecedent
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by vikas.yaadav » Sun Jun 27, 2010 10:12 am
dj_vinayak wrote:
hardik.jadeja wrote:I think the original sentence is wrong because 'their' could refer to kayaks as well as children and adults. So there is pronoun ambiguity in the sentence.
but isnt the pronoun supposed to refer to the antecedent
Yes, Correct, but Pronoun needs to refer to antecedent unambiguously. when we read the sentence, we are not clear "their" refers to "kayaks" or "children and Adults"
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by rockeyb » Sun Jun 27, 2010 7:42 pm
dj_vinayak wrote:In eskimo culture,equipment is designed for use by almost all members of their tribe;for instance,children and adults are able to maneuver kayaks because of their light weight and ingenious construction.

(e)children and adults are able to maneuver the kayaks becaus of these crafts'

OA is e
The sentence as written is correct .

Others have said the sentence has a pronoun ambiguity , but I dont think thats the case here .

I agree that THEIR (plural) matches in number with children ,adults or kayaks.

But look at the non-underlined portion light weight and ingenious construction . Now ask the question can can children or adults have light weight and ingenious construction dose that make sense ? No .

Now lets see if this makes sense for KAYAKS ... it dose . So to conclude THEIR here dose refer to KAYAKS and not children or adults .

Lets look at another example :

Ex: Mary and Jane went to the store and SHE lost her purse .

Now SHE here is personal pronoun , matches in number with the antecedent (Mary OR Jane) and since both can carry a purse and can loose it , we can never be sure if SHE here refers to Mary or Jane .
"Know thyself" and "Nothing in excess"
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