Relative Pronoun & Pronoun Ambiguity

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Optimus Prime: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 30; Joined: Sun Mar 07, 2010 10:47 pm

by Optimus Prime » Mon Apr 26, 2010 10:47 am

Jack is a friend of Jim, who is a friend of Jerry.

Does this sentence have pronoun ambiguity?

Will a relative pronoun (who,which, where) always refer to the noun just before the comma?

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Mon Apr 26, 2010 10:47 am

grockit_andrea: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 357; Joined: Wed Aug 12, 2009 8:31 pmFollowed by: 7 members; Thanked: 128 times

by grockit_andrea » Mon Apr 26, 2010 10:57 am

On the GMAT, a modifier is presumed to modify the word to which it's closest. Here, that's "Jim," so the modifying phrase that begins with "who" is describing Jim. I think that would be pretty standard for relative pronouns introducing modifying phrases, but I can't say that will ALWAYS be the case. I can imagine some scenarios in which a relative pronoun could be more ambiguous, but I can't recall ever eliminating an answer choice because of an ambiguous relative pronoun.

Andrea A.
Grockit Tutor
https://www.grockit.com

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