Mission2012 wrote:Please explain the concept of modifiers in this question
Dear
Mission2012,
I'm happy to respond.
First of all, here's the question in text form.
The director Stephen Spielberg and the actor Morgan Freeman are icons of American cinema, greatly beloved by generations past and present.
(A) The director Stephen Spielberg and the actor Morgan Freeman are icons
(B) Stephen Spielberg the director and Morgan Freeman the actor are icons
(C) The director named Stephen Spielberg and the actor named Morgan Freeman are great icons
(D) The director, Stephen Spielberg, and the actor, Morgan Freeman, are icons
(E) Stephen Spielberg, the director, and Morgan Freeman, the actor, had been icons
As usual, Rich gave a very intelligent analysis of this question. This is one of these idiosyncratic subtleties that is so hard for non-native speakers. The phrase "
the director Stephen Spielberg" or "
President Obama" or "
Congresswoman Pelosi" sound so correct ---
[title][name] --- and putting any of those in the form
[name]"the"[title] would sound so awkward.
Another issue is the one of restrictive vs. non-restrictive modifiers, and concerns the use of commas. See:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/that-vs-which-on-the-gmat/
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-gramm ... modifiers/
When a modifiers precedes or follows a noun with NO COMMA, that means it's a
restrictive modifier (a.k.a a
vital noun modifier or a
mission-critical modifier) --- it gives essential information about the identity of the object. Thus, in the phrase,
"
the director Stephen Spielberg"
We could that that the name "
Stephen Spielberg" is a vital modifier for "
the director" ---- there are many directors, so the name is absolutely necessarily to identify the one about whom we speak.
By contrast, in the construction WITH COMMAS:
the director, Stephen Spielberg,
the name is a non-restrictive modifier, not necessary for identifying the noun. This incorrect implies that there is only one director in the whole word, and that when we way "the director", everyone should know to whom we refer. That's crazy.
In this sentence, we are talking about directors know to several generations, a rather large context. If we were talking about a single movie, which clearly has only one director, then "the director" would be unambiguous, and the name might be provided in a non-restrictive modifier as an informative extra. For example,
In the film Casablanca, the director, Michael Curtiz, choose to rush the production to take advantage of the recent Allied invasion of North Africa.
Because that film has only one director, the words "the director" are sufficient for pointing to a single individual, and the name is added purely for informative purposes, not essential for establishing an identity.
Does all this make sense?
Mike
