repeated pronouns

[gs.abhinav]

Hi, please see the following constructions -

1) Although the sting of the red hermit gnat is rarely fatal, it causes chronic allergic reactions and poses the greatest danger to children, who are particularly vulnerable to it's venom.

As per Manhattan, repeated pronouns are presumed to refer to the same antecedent. So is the above construction bad?

2) Although the sting of the red hermit gnat is rarely fatal, it causes chronic allergic reactions and poses the greatest danger to children, who are particularly vulnerable to their venom.

Is this comparatively better? and please explain what the pronouns are referring to.

Thanks.

[messi10]

Hi Abhinav,

As your sentences currently stand, they are both incorrect.

1) First thing that jumps out is the use of "it's". "It's" is a contraction that stands for "it is". I think you meant to use "its", which is the possessive pronoun.

As you have pointed out, your first "it" refers to the sting and your second "it", which is actually "its" should refer to the red hermit gnat, but seems to have no clear antecedent. A better sentence in my opinion would be:

Although the sting of the red hermit gnat is rarely fatal, it causes chronic allergic reactions and poses the greatest danger to children, who are particularly vulnerable to the gnat's venom.

2) The problem with this sentence is the use of the plural pronoun "their". "Their" has no antecedent in the sentence. The red hermit gnat is a singular noun.

Hope this helps

Regards

Sunil

[gs.abhinav]

Hey Sunil, my bad on replicating the sentences correctly. Both the "it's" error and the singular gnat error were a typo. Let me rephrase the sentences.

Although the sting of the red hermit gnats is rarely fatal, it causes chronic allergic reactions and poses the greatest danger to children, who are particularly vulnerable to its venom.

Although the sting of the red hermit gnats is rarely fatal, it causes chronic allergic reactions and poses the greatest danger to children, who are particularly vulnerable to their venom.

Pardon me but I think this question is not worth the time because 1) is clearly incorrect as you have correctly suggested and 2) doesn't sound good to me despite the fact that their can now refer to the gnats and is logically correct!

Thanks for your help!

[Willy]

Hi Abhinav,

As your sentences currently stand, they are both incorrect.

1) First thing that jumps out is the use of "it's". "It's" is a contraction that stands for "it is". I think you meant to use "its", which is the possessive pronoun.

As you have pointed out, your first "it" refers to the sting and your second "it", which is actually "its" should refer to the red hermit gnat, but seems to have no clear antecedent. A better sentence in my opinion would be:

Although the sting of the red hermit gnat is rarely fatal, it causes chronic allergic reactions and poses the greatest danger to children, who are particularly vulnerable to the gnat's venom.

2) The problem with this sentence is the use of the plural pronoun "their". "Their" has no antecedent in the sentence. The red hermit gnat is a singular noun.

Hope this helps

Regards

Sunil

Thank you Sunil for the reply.

I have a doubt about the part I've marked in Blue.

I think its do have proper antecedent i.e STING. May be I am wrong but I think subject here is STING and Its can't refer back to the Object of the Preposition i.e. the red hermit gnat

Also, it's the Sting that is rarely fatal. And I think we can write the following sentence as

who are particularly vulnerable to the its (Sting's) venom.

So I don't think we need to add gnat's (as above said by you) to correct the sentence.

Am I missing something? Please help.

Best Regards
Get Life Back :)

[messi10]

Hi willigetmylifeback,

You have once again made me question my logic with an interesting reply. :)

Ok, lets take it one by one.

Its can't refer back to the Object of the Preposition

Are you saying that since this is a possessive pronoun, it cannot refer to an object of preposition? I don't know about this rule. Have you read it somewhere? Please let me know the source or send me a link. Thanks

Also, it's the Sting that is rarely fatal. And I think we can write the following sentence as

who are particularly vulnerable to the its (Sting's) venom.

So I don't think we need to add gnat's (as above said by you) to correct the sentence.

You are right when you say that the sting is rarely fatal. However, I am not sure if we can call it "sting's venom". I am not saying that its wrong, perhaps its acceptable but I have always heard "snake's venom" on TV, not "bite's venom".

Once again, let me clarify my post to Abhinav. I was merely stating the best possible sentence in my opinion. Remember that on GMAT, we have to pick the best answer choice and that may not be the best sentence in terms of written english.
I say this specifically in reference to pronoun ambiguity. This issue is taken very mechanically by a lot of us. Ron, in one of his videos has explained very well that pronoun ambiguity is only important on the GMAT when one of the five answer choices eliminates that error. There are examples in the OG where there is a possible pronoun ambiguity but all the five answer choices had it. The sentence was actually testing something else entirely.

Ron also used a good example. Supposing we hear this sentence and it is not a full sentence because we did not hear it fully:

Take the pizza out of the box and put it.....

We don't know what follows after it. It could be a nice long clause or a short and sweet one. But if we had to choose what "it" stands for, we know from the context of the sentence that "it" here definitely stands for pizza, not the box.

So remember that pronoun ambiguity is only relevant if one or more answer choice either replaces that pronoun with a noun or of it changes the position of the pronoun in such a way that it is no longer ambiguous. If all the answer choices have that "acceptable" pronoun ambiguity, then we should not sit there and scratch our heads.

Coming back to the issue, if "its" cannot refer back to the object of preposition then willigetlifeback is right and there is no ambiguity. However, I still prefer gnat's venom to sting's venom and because of that, I will not use "its" here. I would prefer to use gnat's venom

Hope this helps

Regards

Sunil

[gs.abhinav]

Its can't refer back to the Object of the Preposition

I would like to second what Sunil has mentioned here. Haven't seen that particular rule mentioned anywhere. willigetmylifeback, can you please elaborate on this.

Secondly, I agree with Sunil that the words "its poison" don make too much sense if we assume that the pronoun "its" is referring back to the sting. Logically the pronoun should refer back to the gnat.

Hey Sunil, btw off topic - which Manhattan course have you taken? I would love to see Ron's videos.

Cheers
Abhi

[Willy]

Thank you Sunil and Abhinav for the replies.

Please give me some time, I will confirm if the above rule used by me is correct or not.

By the way I used the same logic of Subject can't reside inside the prepositional phrase so I thought it may be true for the pronouns also. Anyhow, let me see MGMAT SC book again, if I can find the same in that book.

Abhinav you can check out the videos of Ron - the Don of GMAT :) from the following link

http://www.manhattangmat.com/thursdays-with-ron.cfm

[gs.abhinav]

whoa thanks will :) thats a ton of stuff. and i hope you do get yourlifeback :) with a blazing 750+..

[messi10]

Hi Abhinav,

willigetmylifeback has given you the links to Ron's videos. To answer your other question, I am enrolled in one of their online classes

If you have any specific questions on the course, feel free to write back

Regards

Sunil

[tim]

Interesting discussion. We'll be glad to weigh in further if there is still any question about this one and if someone can give us a problem source..