ah, i see what you're asking. but, no, frustratingly enough, this is not a case of "X + , + conj + Y".
basically, you are wrongly interpreting that comma as part of the structure of the overall "skeleton" of the sentence, when it in fact belongs to the appositive modifier.

i'll illustrate with a color code:
The single-family house constructed by the Yana, a Native American people who lived in what is now northern california, was conical in shape, its framework of poles overlaid with slabs of bark, either cedar or pine, and banked with dirt to a height of three to four feet.

those commas belong to the orange modifier, not to the overall structure of the sentence. if you remove the orange modifier, those commas will disappear right along with it.

in general, i don't really think that this sort of thing is tested on the gmat.
i do know that the gmat absolutely requires the comma after "Y" in the list "X, Y, and Z" -- and that this particular distinction has shown up in several official problems, much to the chagrin of students who grew up learning british english -- but that's the only one of these comma-placement issues that i've so far seen actually tested.

Could anyone answer the previous question.. The sentence followed by "its" is not leading to a sentence fragment?

see the post directly above yours. (it came after a page break, so it's understandable that you may have missed it.)

Ron,

I saw your post on the 'monkfish' (your example is amazing) earlier today. I wonder whether a plural pronoun should be used if the sentence needs to refer to this "a Native American people"?

You mentioned that 'fish' or 'monkfish' is a mass noun, while I know 'people' is a collective noun. Is mass noun a different term for collective noun, or a different kind of noun?

In addition, 'team' or 'army' seems an another kind of noun, cause I saw sentences use "its" to refer to these two nouns. Would you please explain whether there are some subtle difference/connection among these?

i'm assuming you're referring to this post:
post34240.html#p34240

careful there -- "(monk)fish" can be ALL THREE of
* a singular countable noun (there is one fish in the tank)
* a plural countable noun (there are two fish in the tank)
* a mass noun (tom eats meat and cheese but not fish).

just to be clear, mass nouns are things like "furniture", "silverware", "stuff" (informal), etc. these things are always grammatically singular, although they refer to collections of items.


well, it's *a* people, so it's singular.
HOWEVER, note that, if you are using "a people..." as an appositive (as is the case here), then this singular may have no relationship to the noun that's being modified by the appositive.

For instance:
Running and swimming, a combination that provides part of the backbone for endurance events such as triathlons, together provide an aerobic workout for the whole body.
note that "running and swimming" is plural, but "combination" (in the appositive) is singular.

The Bulldogs, a team that has long been the laughingstock of the league, are now poised to compete for the championship.
here, "bulldogs" is plural, but "team" (in the appositive) is singular.

similarly, "the Yama" is plural, for the same reason that "the English" or "the French" would be (see also here), but "a people" would be singular.



"*a* people" is like these words. "people" (a countable plural), however, is not.
the best way around this dilemma is to think of "a people" (singular collective noun) and "people" (= plural of "person") as two totally different words -- basically, replace the first one by "a population", and the second by "persons". that should help.

same thing with "fish" (mass noun, as described above) vs. "fish" (plural countable noun). when native speakers hear these words in context (context is important!), they would never confuse them with each other -- because, in the brain of a native speaker, they are two completely separate words.

Thank you Ron! Your examples are very helpful!!

glad they help

Can someone please explain why this is not a run on sentence?(i know that has nothing to do with the answer choices)

The single-family house constructed by the Yana, a Native American people who lived in what is now northern California, was conical in shape.

and

its framework of poles overlaid with slabs of bark, either cedar or pine, and banked with dirt to a height of three to four feet.

Thanks in advance.

Edited: To be more precise I understand "its...." is an apposite modifier. But if we say 'banked..' is parallel with 'overlaid..' , this sound like an independent clause.

Sorry, if this a naive question.
____
Ray

Are we ruling out C) as them cannot refer to the single-family house ?

Let me rephrase...Are we ruling out option C) as them is ambigous ?

Dear Instructors - Could you please let us know how to eliminated C? Is it because "banked them with" is not parallel "overlaid with slabs" them is ruining the parallelism?

Also I have eliminated B ad E because of "THAT" - Is it correct? If wrong could you please let me know what "THAT" is referring to here!?

After looking at the problem again , I feel that --- as the clause banked with ... refers to framework of poles which is singular.

Hence , the 3rd person personal pronoun them cannot refer to a singular framework of poles

Hi JP ,

Ron has provide a beautiful explanation on Page 1) of this problem regarding the reason for choices B) and E) getting eliminated.

Please see that.

ray30 --




nope, still a modifier. in this context, banked and overlaid are both "past participles" -- i.e., not verbs -- so this is not an independent clause.
it's possible for banked or overlaid to be an actual verb, but not in this context. if these are genuinely verbs, then their subjects have to be people, and they need objects.
for instance,
i overlaid the original primer with two more coats of paint. --> here, "overlaid" is a verb. note that its subject is a person ("i").
on the door is a coat of primer overlaid with two coats of paint. --> "overlaid with..." is a participial modifier; the coat of primer is overlaid with 2 coats of paint.

"them" could be the poles.

the problem with that construction is that, if you have "...and banked them...", then the only logical subject would be the yana (= people) themselves.
for instance, the yana built a framework of poles and banked it/them with... would be legitimate.

in this sentence there's no other verb with "the yana" as the subject, so this construction is parallel to ... nothing.