A Basic doubt in Verbal that is killing me !!!! Pl help

[tgt.ivyleague]

Hi all,

Sorry for such an abrupt topic. Actually have my exam day after tomorrow and have suddenly got this major doubt which has cropped up in my mind ... so need an expert who can help me out here ...... please respond asap!)

This doubt is regarding Pronoun Reference:

We know that a pronoun has to refer to ONE & ONLY ONE antecedent and any ambiguity in this regard means a wrong answer.
For eg :
Josie plays with Tina daily so that she remains fit ---
This is wrong because "She" seems to be referring to the closest noun Tina whereas it can refer to both of them. This is understood.

In this ex., both the subjects could be logically used to replace "She". But what if the former noun cannot be LOGICALLY used ?!?!


For ex :
Workers manufacture cars so that they can earn money.
Now here the closest noun to "they" is "cars" but we know "cars" CANNOT make "money". So "they" has to logically refer to "workers" only. So in this case, is this choice correct or is it still ambiguos !!?!

What if the sentence was:
Cars are manufactured by workers so that they can make more money.
(Please ignore the passiveness of the sentence)
Here the closest noun is "Workers" and "they" is logically referring to it too. But technically, since "cars" and "workers" are both plural, it can refer to both of them. In this case, is this also ambiguos or is the answer correctly framed !!?!?

Lastly: What if the sentence was:
Each car is manufactured by workers so that they can make money.
Now here, "car" is singular while "workers" are plural. Now since "they" is plural .... Does this automatically mean that "they" refers to "workers".
What if the nouns were flipped to say:
Workers manufacture a car so that they can make money.
Here, here, "car" is singular while "workers" are plural. So even though "they" is plural, it is closest to "car" .... Does this make the choice wrong or will here too the sentence automatically mean that "they" refers to "workers".

Would really appreciate a quick response ..... Thanks a lot in advance .....

If any of the expert instructors here such as Ron & Stacey have already answered a similiar query, then i would be obiliged if someone could pl give me the link. I have tried to find it but in this vast ocean of topics, haven't been successful!!!

Regards .... Sam

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm sorry that I'm not reading this until now, which is "the day after tomorrow," or your test day. We answer questions in this folder twice a week; for future, the forums are not the place to go when you have a question that requires a quick answer. Call the office or email your instructor (if you are one of our students) - but don't expect to be able to get an answer on the forums within a couple of days. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't.

Here's a discussion of pronouns: regarding-pronouns-t1302.html

Note: that thread includes a discussion of an OG problem. At the time that it was posted, it was still okay to post OG problems online. That's no longer allowed. You can read the existing discussion, but we can't actually continue to discuss that problem online now.