Parallelism and modifier

[Soumita Ghosh]

In Dogon society, social caste determined how the society provided access to resources, distributed wealth, and defined ownership and inheritance laws when the ownership of that wealth was called into question.

A.distributed wealth, and defined ownership and inheritance laws when the

B.distributing wealth, defining ownership and inheritance laws when that

C.distributed wealth, and defined ownership and inheritance laws when that

D.distributing wealth, and defining ownership and inheritance laws if the

E.the distribution of wealth, and the definition of ownership and inheritance laws once the

OA A

I understand that the choice A is maintaining parallelism between provided,distributed and defined . Bu my query is can we use when after laws. If we use when after laws then as per my understanding when is modifying laws so it is wrong. When cannot modify laws. Am I making mistake anywhere in understanding?

[brianlange77]

I understand that the choice A is maintaining parallelism between provided,distributed and defined . Bu my query is can we use when after laws. If we use when after laws then as per my understanding when is modifying laws so it is wrong. When cannot modify laws. Am I making mistake anywhere in understanding?

Soumita:
I'll disagree with you on 'when' and the role it's playing. My take is that 'when' is playing the role of an adverbial modifier here -- and as we know, adverbial modifiers don't need to touch the part of the sentence that they are modifying.
Thoughts?
-Brian

[Tommy Wallach]

Brian's absolutely right here, as usual! : )

The word "when" can only modify actions, and thus it is purely an adverbial modifier. This means it is under no constraints in terms of its general placement in a sentence:

When I was younger, I ate fish.
I ate fish when I was younger.

Cool, right?

-t