Modifiers with Relative Pronouns

[chitts.hota]

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

[mschwrtz]

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."

[chitts.hota]

Thanks for your response. Doubt cleared :)

[tim]

Glad to hear it..

[sid090188]

Hello,

Can you please illustrate with examples when can something come between a noun and a relative pronoun noun modifier.

The following sentence is given as correct in the SC guide:
1)A new CEO has been hired who will transform the company by decentralizing authority to various division heads while increasing their accountability through the use of public scorecards.

But the following sentence is awkward as per Ron's posts:
2 a)I know more about Shakespeare than my brother does,who knows little about English literature.

I am aware that the sentence below reads better:
2 b)I know more about Shakespeare than does my brother,who knows little about English literature.

But still why is 2a awkward.2b will be preferred but is 2a wrong.

Here in both cases sentences 1 and 2a ,a verb comes between the noun and the relative pronoun noun modifier.

So when can a verb come in between.In case there is a detailed article or something please post in the reply.

[tim]

i guess i don't understand your question. you've asked for examples of a situation that you've given us three examples of in your post!

please understand that just because something is awkward doesn't mean it is wrong..

[sid090188]

Hello,

My question that when can a verb(or clause etc)come between a noun and a relative pronoun modifier. Or rather when can a noun and a noun modifier be separated from each other.

Please suggest some good read or rules governing this

[tim]

nouns and their modifiers should touch each other. do you have any reason to believe this is ever not the case?

[sid090188]

Yes,exception is when there is a mission critical modifier like the 'A new CEO has been hired who.........(example)'.So what exactly is the rule for the mission critical modifier.How to come to know that something is mission critical and can come between a noun and noun modifier.

[RonPurewal]

it's sometimes ok for things to come between nouns and modifiers, and sometimes not.
really, like everything else in the language, it's a function of two things: (1) the rules governing the particular structures in question, and (2) whether the meaning is clear.

it's not really possible to write a generalization in a single forum post; there are way too many kinds of modifiers, and way too many things that they can do, for that to be feasible. but, here are a couple of examples.

perhaps most obviously: if a noun is followed by two modifiers, it's impossible for both of them to "touch" the noun (since words, for all their wonderfulness, do still have to be put in a straight line).
e.g.
I saw a huge crowd of spectators in the stands wearing all red.
this sentence is ok. both "in the stands" and "wearing all red" modify "spectators", so one of them is going to have to be distant from it.

for another example -- in which the intervening modifier is longer -- see #50 in the Diagnostic test (of og11, og12, or og13 -- the diagnostic test hasn't been changed in quite a while). in the correct answer to that problem, "of distributing songs..." and "that will protect..." both modify "way".
i can't reproduce the text of this problem here.

in both of these cases -- and in just about any other case of this phenomenon that you'll encounter -- try to think of whether there's a better way to organize the sentence, and you'll generally discover that there isn't; hence, the way the sentence actually is written.

so, the point here is not to be too doctrinaire about these kinds of structures. modifiers have a lot of jobs to do, so sometimes they have to be a bit, um, versatile.