Sentence Correction

prepgmat09 wrote: Although you have quoted William Strunk, making me think twice before making a comment, I think the sentence mentioned above is gramatically incorrect. This is because the sentence should be meaningful even when the modifiers are removed. In the above sentence, if we remove the modifier (enclosed in commas), the sentence reads:

He saw us coming greeted us with a smile.

This sentence without modifiers does not make much logical or grammatical sense.

Right. What you have stated is generally correct. If we remove the parenthetical component, the remaining sentence should be grammatical. Strunk says the same thing.

E.g. -
1) The audience, which had at first been indifferent, became more and more interested. - Correct
2) In 1769, when Napoleon was born, Corsica had but recently been acquired by France. - Correct

However, Strunk makes this one exception if the parenthetical part follows a conjunction, in which case the conjunction is taken within the parenthesis.

Take the following example (mine) -

3) I have a dream and, if God is willing, I shall realize it. - Incorrect
4) I have a dream, and if God is willing, I shall realize it. - Correct

Let me elucidate why this exception makes sense to me. Punctuations are used in writing to signify moments of silence or to mark breaks / pauses in speech.

Try to speak sentences 3 and 4 aloud and try to figure out when should we pause.

In sentence 3, comma comes after and. So we must speak in the following manner -

I have a dream and,
pause for a while,
if God is willing,
pause again
I shall realize it.

In sentence 4, comma comes before and. We must speak in the following manner -

I have a dream,
pause for a while,
and if God is willing,
pause again
I shall realize it.

Now, 4 sounds much more fluent and consistent to me than 3. That is why putting comma before and not after and makes sense.

However, I think you shouldn't rack your brain too much on it. I doubt GMAC would ask such a question.

@uwhusky,
What is the source?

vishalj wrote:Hardik - Are you sure that " using the set of objective criteria" is only an adverbial modifier? To me, it seems that it is a participial modifier as well. As we know,the participial modifier modifies noun. Most of the time, the participial modifier is adjacent to noun if it is separated by comma. If there is no comma, the participial modifier should always be adjacent to noun.

Now here, the participial modifier is modifying the noun "executives". To find the subject or noun, we need to ask ourselves the question - who is using the set of objective criteria? And the answer is clearly "executives".

Also, it is not unusual to see participial modifier after conjunction. Eg. Steve is talking to Jonna while driving car. The construction is different, but I used this example to state the point.

Now, it is also an adverbial modifier as it did answer the "how" question.

So the conclusion is that we can solve this either way. Let me know what you think.

I doubt Hardik is around!

using the set of objective criteria derived from these analyses is indeed an adverbial modifier and not a participle phrase. It is too far removed from the noun executives and is in no way qualifying it.

I was surprised to see one of my old posts being on top. This was an OG question, so you might want to adapt this structure instead of Strunk's.

niksworth wrote: using the set of objective criteria derived from these analyses is indeed an adverbial modifier and not a participle phrase. It is too far removed from the noun executives and is in no way qualifying it.

Plus I haven't seen a gerund used as non-essential phrase...maybe there are some cases, but none in my recollection. This is most certainly a case of adverbial modifier.

Hmmm. So GMAC does not consider this an error. Interesting. Will keep this in mind.