SC:the Louisiana Purchase of 1803

[mschwrtz]

It seems that [i]more than... and bringing are jointly modifying 828,000 square miles, am I right? [/i]

Nope. More than modifies doubling, and doubling and... bringing is a compound participial modifying the entire clause the United States acquired 828,000 square miles for about four cents an acre.

According to this sentence doubling[/i and [i]bringing were the result of acquiring. Makes sense. True, too. It's confusing when they slip other modifiers between a comma and an -ing word, isn't it?

[7ewis.chen]

It seems that [i]more than... and bringing are jointly modifying 828,000 square miles, am I right? [/i]

Nope. More than modifies doubling, and doubling and... bringing is a compound participial modifying the entire clause the United States acquired 828,000 square miles for about four cents an acre.

According to this sentence doubling[/i and [i]bringing were the result of acquiring. Makes sense. True, too. It's confusing when they slip other modifiers between a comma and an -ing word, isn't it?

Yes, ture! Now I got it now. I thought if there were no more than before doubling, i could immediately tell it's the participial modifying, no more really confused me :D

THX a lot mschwrtz!

[RonPurewal]

glad it helped

[phuonglink]

Source: GMATprep(practice test 1:q13)

In the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the United States acquired 828,000 square miles for about four cents an acre, which more than doubled the country's size and that brought its western border within reach of the Pacific Ocean.
A. In the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the United States acquired 828,000 square miles for about four cents an acre, which more than doubled the country's size and that brought
B. For about four cents an acre the United States acquired, in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, 828,000 square miles, more than doubling the country's size and it brought
C. With the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the United States acquired 828,000 square miles for about four cents an acre, more than doubling its size and bringing
D. The United States, in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, for about four cents an acre, acquired 828,000 square miles, more than doubling the country's size, bringing
E. Acquiring 828,000 square miles in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the United States bought it for about four cents an acre, more than doubling the country's size and bringing

After studying explanations of people in this post i sum it as follows:
(A): "which" followed by comma is expected to modify "an acre", "in the Louisiana purchase, U.s" is wierd in meaning
(B): acquire should plus something
(D): is bad in structure with xxx,xxxx,xxx,xxxx,xxxxx
(E): we have pronoun shift: "it" and "its" modify 2 different things which is not allowed in writing (Ron said)
Please correct me if i'm wrong.

[RonPurewal]

responses point by point:

(A): "which" followed by comma is expected to modify "an acre", "in the Louisiana purchase, U.s" is wierd in meaning

i think you have the right idea in your discussion of "which", but, just to clarify -- that "which" is trying to refer to the entire idea of the preceding clause, but grammatical rules will allow it to apply to, at the very most, "four cents an acre".

regarding the initial modifier ("in the louisiana purchase"), no, that's incorrect -- generally, when a sentence starts with a prepositional phrase in front of a comma, that prepositional phrase modifies the meaning of the entire clause that follows. so this modifier is fine.

(B): acquire should plus something

i'm not really sure what this means.
if you mean that the word "acquire" should have an object, note that it does -- "828,000 square miles", which is admittedly placed in a strange location (after another modifier), but is there.

here are a couple of more serious problems that i see with that answer choice:
* the repeated pronoun "it" is inappropriate if you have two actions, with the same subject, connected by "and". this is a rather arbitrary convention -- probably aimed at making sentences more readable while reducing redundancy -- but it's pretty firm: for example, "james drank a glass of water and took a nap" is considered a proper parallel structure while "james drink a glass of water and he took a nap" is not. in general, you don't use a second subject in such parallel structures, unless it's a different subject.
* the parallelism exists between "it brought..." and "the united states acquired...". this parallelism is inappropriate, suggesting that both of these events occurred at a rate of four cents per acre (nonsense for "it brought..."). moreover, the elements that should be parallel (the forms of "double" and "bring") aren't parallel; this kind of "mistake by omission" is also a mistake.

(D): is bad in structure with xxx,xxxx,xxx,xxxx,xxxxx

ya -- more precisely, this choice has an -ING modifier modifying another -ING modifier. i don't think that's a legitimate structure; at the very least, i have certainly never seen it in any halfway legitimate official sentence.

(E): we have pronoun shift: "it" and "its" modify 2 different things which is not allowed in writing (Ron said)
Please correct me if i'm wrong.

hmm yeah -- that's an issue here, but note that the "it" and "its" are in different clauses. moreover, note that the noun "country's", which intervenes between those two pronouns, conveniently serves as a referent for the pronoun "its".

this is one of those sentences in which a native speaker's first reaction would be something along the lines of, "huh? i can't tell at first glance what that pronoun stands for". ... but let me try to come up with something specific:
the intended referent of the pronoun is used:
* prior to the pronoun
-- AND --
* in a modifier between commas
if a referent ever satisfies both of these criteria, it is very unlikely that it's a legitimate referent for a pronoun.

[phuonglink]

thank you for the very clear elucidation you've made. Not only me but many people who have read this would must be very grateful for your help.

[RonPurewal]

thanks.

[sirsriram]

isn't "in the Louisiana purchase" just wrong in the context of the sentence...

How could the U.S. do something "in the purchase" -- that just seemed odd to me.

"with the L... purchase" ---> how did the U.S. acquire land? answer: "with the Lou... purchase" seemed better...

Is that a valid yardstick to zero in on C?

[jnelson0612]

isn't "in the Louisiana purchase" just wrong in the context of the sentence...

How could the U.S. do something "in the purchase" -- that just seemed odd to me.

"with the L... purchase" ---> how did the U.S. acquire land? answer: "with the Lou... purchase" seemed better...

Is that a valid yardstick to zero in on C?

A more valid yardstick is to see that "which" is used incorrectly in choice A and knock out A; however, I agree do agree with you that "with" is a much better preposition than "in".

[violetwind]

(E): we have pronoun shift: "it" and "its" modify 2 different things which is not allowed in writing (Ron said)
Please correct me if i'm wrong.

hmm yeah -- that's an issue here, but note that the "it" and "its" are in different clauses. moreover, note that the noun "country's", which intervenes between those two pronouns, conveniently serves as a referent for the pronoun "its".

this is one of those sentences in which a native speaker's first reaction would be something along the lines of, "huh? i can't tell at first glance what that pronoun stands for". ... but let me try to come up with something specific:
the intended referent of the pronoun is used:
* prior to the pronoun
-- AND --
* in a modifier between commas
if a referent ever satisfies both of these criteria, it is very unlikely that it's a legitimate referent for a pronoun.

Hi Ron,

Sorry but I don't quite understand the above bolded part, this is meant to justify that "the Louisiana Purchase " cannot be the referent of the pronoun "it"?

Another question about the "it" in E is that is it OK to use "it" to refer to "828,000 square miles"-- a plural phrase? or the phrase can be an abstract concept that we can use a singular pronoun to refer to ?

And, about "in the Louisiana Purchase" or "with the Louisiana Purchase", I thought "in" is legitimate as it could be explained to be both an transaction (for which "in" is right) and a method/contract/tool(for which "with" is right) , is that so?

Please kindly shed lights on these, thank you very much!

[RonPurewal]

Sorry but I don't quite understand the above bolded part, this is meant to justify that "the Louisiana Purchase " cannot be the referent of the pronoun "it"?

Another question about the "it" in E is that is it OK to use "it" to refer to "828,000 square miles"-- a plural phrase? or the phrase can be an abstract concept that we can use a singular pronoun to refer to ?

And, about "in the Louisiana Purchase" or "with the Louisiana Purchase", I thought "in" is legitimate as it could be explained to be both an transaction (for which "in" is right) and a method/contract/tool(for which "with" is right) , is that so?

Please kindly shed lights on these, thank you very much!

eh, it's not worth getting into micro-points about ambiguous pronouns. most pronoun ambiguity is actually tolerated, anyway, so getting into ten thousand shades of nuance about it will mostly just result in unnecessary confusion.

another reason to eliminate choice (e) is the following portion:
the United States bought it for about four cents an acre, more than doubling the country's size...
this doesn't comport with the use of COMMA -ING modifiers; such modifiers are supposed to have a direct relationship to the previous clause. however, in this answer choice, there is no relationship between the previous clause (which deals with how much the united states paid) and the modifier (which deals with the increase in its size).
by contrast, in the correct answer, note that this modifier actually modifies a clause that deals with the size of the purchase.

[violetwind]

Sorry but I don't quite understand the above bolded part, this is meant to justify that "the Louisiana Purchase " cannot be the referent of the pronoun "it"?

Another question about the "it" in E is that is it OK to use "it" to refer to "828,000 square miles"-- a plural phrase? or the phrase can be an abstract concept that we can use a singular pronoun to refer to ?

And, about "in the Louisiana Purchase" or "with the Louisiana Purchase", I thought "in" is legitimate as it could be explained to be both an transaction (for which "in" is right) and a method/contract/tool(for which "with" is right) , is that so?

Please kindly shed lights on these, thank you very much!

eh, it's not worth getting into micro-points about ambiguous pronouns. most pronoun ambiguity is actually tolerated, anyway, so getting into ten thousand shades of nuance about it will mostly just result in unnecessary confusion.

another reason to eliminate choice (e) is the following portion:
the United States bought it for about four cents an acre, more than doubling the country's size...
this doesn't comport with the use of COMMA -ING modifiers; such modifiers are supposed to have a direct relationship to the previous clause. however, in this answer choice, there is no relationship between the previous clause (which deals with how much the united states paid) and the modifier (which deals with the increase in its size).
by contrast, in the correct answer, note that this modifier actually modifies a clause that deals with the size of the purchase.

Hi Ron,

Thank you for pointing out another problem for E, I didn't realized it and now I see it too!

but~~I still feel confused about my 3 questions~

For the first, I think you wanted to indicate that the object of an preposision is generally not considered to be the referent of pronoun after such phrase. Is that what you meant?

2. I just wanna clarify, if "8200 square miles" can be taken as a sigular noun, which means we can use "it" and "is" ,or it is just a plural phrase?

3 about "with" or "in" ,here is what I wrote,

And, about "in the Louisiana Purchase" or "with the Louisiana Purchase", I thought "in" is legitimate as it could be explained to be both an transaction (for which "in" is right) and a method/contract/tool(for which "with" is right) , is that so?

does my understanding of the two prepostions too rigid?

[saintjingjing]

responses point by point:

hmm yeah -- that's an issue here, but note that the "it" and "its" are in different clauses. moreover, note that the noun "country's", which intervenes between those two pronouns, conveniently serves as a referent for the pronoun "its".

this is one of those sentences in which a native speaker's first reaction would be something along the lines of, "huh? i can't tell at first glance what that pronoun stands for". ... but let me try to come up with something specific:
the intended referent of the pronoun is used:
* prior to the pronoun
-- AND --
* in a modifier between commas
if a referent ever satisfies both of these criteria, it is very unlikely that it's a legitimate referent for a pronoun.

Yes, Ron, I have the similiar question as violetwind has asked. en, I know you say that ambiguous pronoun is not absolute, but I just do not understand how to use it(= words in big size), so can you clearify E from this point again? thanks in advance

[RonPurewal]

For the first, I think you wanted to indicate that the object of an preposision is generally not considered to be the referent of pronoun after such phrase. Is that what you meant?

yes. that is definitely not an absolute rule, i.e., it may have exceptions. but it seems to be followed in just about all of gmac's usage.

2. I just wanna clarify, if "8200 square miles" can be taken as a sigular noun, which means we can use "it" and "is" ,or it is just a plural phrase?

generally this construction (like other "# + units" constructions) would be singular, yes.
the chance that you'll ever see a pronoun standing for this kind of thing is basically zero.

3 about "with" or "in" ,here is what I wrote,

And, about "in the Louisiana Purchase" or "with the Louisiana Purchase", I thought "in" is legitimate as it could be explained to be both an transaction (for which "in" is right) and a method/contract/tool(for which "with" is right) , is that so?

i think that's accurate.

[thanghnvn]

Ron,member, pls, help

I agree that D is wrong but I want to know more.

in D, "in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803", and "for about four cents an acre" are not connected. I think we need "and" between these phrase.

A I correct? pls, help.