Modifier Question - General Doubt

[priya2gupta5]

According to his own account, Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, the sculptor of the
Statue of Liberty, modeled the face of the statue like his mother's and the body
like his wife's.

(A) modeled the face of the statue like his mother's and the body like his wife's
(B) modeled the face of the statue after that of his mother and the body after that
of his wife
(C) modeled the face of the statue like his mother and the body like his wife
(D) made the face of the statue after his mother and the body after his wife
(E) made the face of the statue look like his mother and the body look like his
wife

OA = B
Source: 1000 SC questions

I know 1000 SC questions are not trustworthy. But given that this question has been discussed on MGMAT forum with expert opinion here - https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/acc ... t7514.html, I guess that there may not be any issues with this questions.

Thus, with this premise comes my question - How is the use of modifier - "According to his own account" correct in this sentence. How is this modifier modifying "Fredrick"? I know that this is in the non-underlined portion of the sentence, but I want to make sure that my understanding of this modifier is correct.

Actually would like to know if this is indeed incorrect then what is the correct way of expressing this idea...

Thanks,

Priya

[mundasingh123]

According to his own account, Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, the sculptor of the
Statue of Liberty, modeled the face of the statue like his mother's and the body
like his wife's.

(A) modeled the face of the statue like his mother's and the body like his wife's
(B) modeled the face of the statue after that of his mother and the body after that
of his wife
(C) modeled the face of the statue like his mother and the body like his wife
(D) made the face of the statue after his mother and the body after his wife
(E) made the face of the statue look like his mother and the body look like his
wife

OA = B
Source: 1000 SC questions

I know 1000 SC questions are not trustworthy. But given that this question has been discussed on MGMAT forum with expert opinion here - https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/acc ... t7514.html, I guess that there may not be any issues with this questions.

Thus, with this premise comes my question - How is the use of modifier - "According to his own account" correct in this sentence. How is this modifier modifying "Fredrick"? I know that this is in the non-underlined portion of the sentence, but I want to make sure that my understanding of this modifier is correct.

Actually would like to know if this is indeed incorrect then what is the correct way of expressing this idea...

Thanks,

Priya

what do u mean by "How is this modifier modifying frederic ?"
Its modifying subject + verb of the following clause

[priya2gupta5]

ok so now I have 2 questions...

Is "according to his own account" modifying just the subject - Frederic implying that
Frederic is according to his own account - ???

Or does it modify the subject and verb both implying that
Frederic modeled the face of statue...according to his own account. -???

Now both look odd to me...But at the same time I have seen such usage in trusted sources as well. It is very common to say - according to eye witness, blah blah happened...

So is "according to..." an exception here?

[mundasingh123]

ok so now I have 2 questions...

Is "according to his own account" modifying just the subject - Frederic implying that
Frederic is according to his own account - ???

Or does it modify the subject and verb both implying that
Frederic modeled the face of statue...according to his own account. -???

Now both look odd to me...But at the same time I have seen such usage in trusted sources as well. It is very common to say - according to eye witness, blah blah happened...

So is "according to..." an exception here?

Or does it modify the subject and verb both implying that
Frederic modeled the face of statue...according to his own account. -???
Correct . It modifies the subject + Verb in the foll. clause

[SticklorForDetails]

Great question!

Although "according to his own account" looks like a participial modifier (and thus an adjective that should modify Bartholdi), it is in fact just a regular adverbial modifier. "According to" is an idiom that functions here as a subordinating conjunction, much like "because" or "although." It is not the participle "according." Adverbial modifiers like this, when set off by commas, can be placed anywhere in the sentence and will always modify the main action of the sentence, in this case, "modeled."

A simple way to check is to realize that "According to his own account" could be replaced by "By his own account," and this prepositional phrase more obviously could serve as an adverb. If you doubt that adverbs like this can go anywhere, try the following example:

"By the power of Grayskull, He-Man will avenge us!" (correct)
"He-Man will avenge us, by the power of Grayskull!" (also correct)

[priya2gupta5]

Oh Ok...Got it SticklorForDetails...That was amazing...My bad...I saw that -ing and I thought that its a verb-ing...So this is like any prepositional phrase modifier - According to his own account - or per his own account...- or by his own account - as you mentioned.

Thank you so much....

[lunarpower]

Oh Ok...Got it SticklorForDetails...That was amazing...My bad...I saw that -ing and I thought that its a verb-ing...So this is like any prepositional phrase modifier - According to his own account - or per his own account...- or by his own account - as you mentioned.

Thank you so much....:)

i received a pm regarding this thread.

yes, the best way to process "according to" is to treat the whole thing as a giant preposition.

[tanviet]

COMA DOING or DOING COMMA is adverb modifier but the position of this modifier must be logic relative to subject of main clause.

Ron already explained this very carefully in a recent posting.