prana has given you good advice above; the "now . . ." phrase is indeed a noun modifier modifying the noun immediately before it (policy makers at the Federal Reserve).

As for identifying warmups, I have learned to keep an eye out for warmups when I see a phrase leading off the sentence that is followed by a comma.

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Jamie Nelson
ManhattanGMAT Instructor

Hi Jamie - I'm little bit confused now....

1/ In the below example could you please me know the subject ? (taken from a real GMAT Prep Q)

Many environmentalists say that free trade encourages industry to relocate to countries with ineffective or poorly enforced antipollution laws.

Please correct me if im wrong :

Many environmentalists (subject) say (verb) that (that - clause introducer) free trade (subject) encourages (verb) ....blah blah...

2/ Some environmentalists believe that scientists have done more bad than good to the environment since 2002 , they have also published their concerns in various scientific news journals.

Here from pure grammar stand point What is the Antecedent of "they" I understand ......., they .... refers to the subject of the previous clause which is?

3/ Also isn't "COMMA + VERBing" always an an adverbial modifier that modifies the subject of the previous clause in this case "financial experts" Im not arguing about the correct just wanted to know how the modifier works in this question also "now" is just an adjective right....

Many financial experts believe that policy makers at the Federal Reserve, now viewing the economy as balanced between moderate growth and low inflation, are almost certain to leave interest rates unchanged for the foreseeable future.

An example of +COMMA + , + VERBING + http://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/The-number-of-people-flying-first-t5600.html

Cheers

1) you are totally correct..

2) this one is grammatically invalid, so i cannot help you with the pronoun until you transcribe the sentence correctly..

3) where did this example come from? you are correct that COMMA+verbING is an adverbial modifier; this means however that it cannot modify a noun..

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Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor

Thanks

Sorry here is another 1.

Many financial experts believe that policy makers at the Federal Reserve are almost certain to leave interest rates unchanged for the foreseeable future ; they also now view the economy as balanced between moderate growth and low inflation

Does "they" refer to "financial experts" or "policy makers"?



The CORRECT ans below with the non-underlined part.

Many financial experts believe that policy makers at the Federal Reserve, now viewing the economy as balanced between moderate growth and low inflation, are almost certain to leave interest rates unchanged for the foreseeable future.

This example is from from the problem under discussion.

So my question here is

1. Is "now viewing" a Noun modifier or Verb Modifier?

2. If it's a Noun Modifier then why? Isn't view - a verb?
So that would make it Viewing a COMMA VERBING modifier right?

3. If it's a Noun Modifier then how do we decide whether it is modifying "financial experts" or "policy makers"?

4. If it's a Verb modifier then "now viewing" should modify complete previous clause and should apply to subject of the previous clause which in the given question is "financial experts". and the correct ans seems to say ""financial experts"" are now viewing the economy as balanced...

I'm not question the right ans but I just want to learn about the modifier.

Please help

Cheers

i think you could safely conclude that "they" refers to the financial experts, because the sentence is indicating that they hold two different perspectives..

"now viewing" looks like a noun modifier. remember, whether something is a noun modifier or a verb modifier depends on what it's modifying, not the nature of the words in the modifier. but although "view" is a verb, that does not mean that "viewing" is. also remember that if you have a noun modifier, it touches the noun it is modifying, so it is certainly not modifying "financial experts". i am still skeptical of this example in general though; can you provide a source for the problem?

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Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor