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Modifiers with Relative Pronouns

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chitts.hota
 Post subject: Modifiers with Relative Pronouns
 Post Posted: Tue Jun 01, 2010 6:47 pm 
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Students


Posts: 2
Hello,
I am new to this forum. Thanks to all you have been part of this.
Coming straight to my doubt:

Source: 2003 edition SC Guide, Page 67 (towards the end of the page)

Doubt:
"Cars come in many colors,which can be very cool or very ugly."
Why does the guide mention that the above sentence contains an ambiguity.
As I understand, which has just one antecedent and that is colors. There are 2 nouns i.e. Cars,colors , but colors is followed by "which", which suggests that cool/ugly are talking about colors.

Please correct me if have gone wrong somewhere.

Thanks in advance
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mschwrtz
 Post subject: Re: Modifiers with Relative Pronouns
 Post Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 3:19 am 
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ManhattanGMAT Staff


Posts: 506
Yes, that does seem to be an infelicitous example. We don't use it in in our recent text. I don't have any 2003 texts handy, so I can't say if it might have been clearer in context. Probably the reason that this usage is described as ambiguous is that people often INCORRECTLY use "which" to modify a clause, and that seems to be what's going on in the cited example.

In any event, you understand the bottom-line issue correctly. WHICH can refer only to the noun (or noun phrase) immediately preceding it, in this case "colors."
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chitts.hota
 Post subject: Re: Modifiers with Relative Pronouns
 Post Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2010 9:28 pm 
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Students


Posts: 2
Thanks for your response. Doubt cleared :)
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tim
 Post subject: Re: Modifiers with Relative Pronouns
 Post Posted: Tue Jun 29, 2010 4:49 pm 
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ManhattanGMAT Staff


Posts: 2242
Location: Southwest Airlines, seat 21C
Glad to hear it..

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Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor
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