Modifier/pronoun

[sonu_gmat]

eg. i) Because they......... , dancers maintain ........
eg. ii) Originating from their foreheads, sounds emitted by elephants.......

Both the examples taken from MGMAT's old posts.

Q1. For the first one I read that 'they' must modify the subject immidiately after ','. Is it applicable for all other dependent clauses (wh, although, eventhough etc.). I've seen sentences where this rule does not apply.

Q2. For the second one possessive pronoun 'their' should modify which one. Logically it should modify 'elephants'. But I read in some post that one of MGMAT's stuffs wrote it modifies 'sounds'. Is it mandatory for 'their' to modify the subject immidiately after ',' since I've seen quite a few places that possessive pronoun in the openning modifier does not modify the subject immidiately after ','.

I really appreciate your help on this.

[StaceyKoprince]

Noun modifiers do have to "touch" the nouns they modify, so an opening modifier would be required to modify the noun after the comma.

A pronoun does not absolutely have to be close to, or "touch" the noun that it refers to. It often does, though, simply because if there are multiple nouns that could be the referent, then placing the noun and pronoun in clear relation to one another avoids the ambiguity.

When you have an opening dependent clause, you pretty much know you're going to have a noun after the comma (because you need to start the independent clause sometime!). So if you have an opening dependent clause and you *don't* put the noun it's referring to after the comma, there's potential ambiguity - is the pronoun supposed to refer to that first noun or something else?

Before she went to work, Amy drank some coffee with Beth.

Who is the opening clause referring to, Amy or Beth? Convention says it should be Amy.

We can also look at the structure of the phrases or clauses in question. When the opening depedent clause uses a subject pronoun, then structurally, the subject after the comma should be the match. This goes with your first example: Because they..., dancers maintain. "they" is a subject pronoun and "dancers is the subject of the main clause. That's a good structural match.

Your second example starts with an "ing" opener, which works a little differently. Now, we have "something originating" but the word "something" isn't actually written there. In fact, no pronoun is written to refer to whatever is "originating." This is more of a pure modifier: it's talking about something but not giving us any clues as to what it's talking about. What's originating? I have no idea. In this case, the noun following the comma MUST be whatever is originating. Is it in this case? Yes - the sounds are originating. So far, so good.

The pronoun "their" is now part of a prepositional phrase (from their foreheads) - it's no longer a subject pronoun; as you note, it's a possessive pronoun. So I don't necessarily expect the subject of the sentence to match with this possessive pronoun. It might... but it doesn't absolutely have to. (And, in this case, it doesn't.)

It still sounds kind of awkward - I probably wouldn't write a sentence in that way myself. :)

[sonu_gmat]

Students will take course on HR seriously only if it is taught as a required course.
Students will take course on HR seriously if it is taught only as a required course.

Which one should we pick here. I modified the actual version and removed the other errors.

Similarly another one:
X is surpassed only by Y
X is surpassed by only Y

Is there any difference between the two above.

X is only surpassed by Y - here I know we are limiting surpass but how the meaning gets affected. Or ideally we need to put 'only' just before what it modifies.

[JonathanSchneider]

Students will take course on HR seriously only if it is taught as a required course.
Students will take course on HR seriously if it is taught only as a required course.

There is a difference in meaning above. The first is strict: such will be the case ONLY in a certain situation. The second is not strict: there is a cause-effect relationship, but it is not the only possible cause that would lead to this effect.

X is surpassed only by Y -- we would use this when Y is a specific person or thing. For example: "Manny Ramirez is surpassed by Alex Rodriguez in hitting."

X is surpassed by only Y -- we would use this normally when Y is a number. For example: "Manny Ramirez is surpassed in hitting by only three current players."

X is only surpassed by Y -- this would only be correct if modified somehow. For example: "Manny Ramirez is only surpassed by Alex Rodriguez in hitting." This sentence would mean that Alex Rodriguez surpasses Manny Ramirez in no other category.

(Baseball fans: the above just used as examples :) )