"WHICH" clarification

[JbhB682]

Hi Sage -

We know that "WHICH" modifiers can modify a noun that happen to be separated by a prepositional phrase ..example

Source made up :

The old building in Country X, which was 10 feet tall and five meters wide, is gone = "WHICH" correctly modifies "Building"

Question : can "which" modify a noun separated by an essential modifier ?

Source made up :

The old building that was built in Country X, which was 10 foot tall and five meters wide, is gone

Per a 2011 Ron P video, his understanding was this was an incorrect usage of "WHICH" then..

Just wondering if this is still accurate today as well ?

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

I don't know the video that you're referring to, but it sounds like I'd agree with Ron on those examples. However, my understanding is more based on the meaning of the sentence. Squeezing a short modifier between the noun and the which modifier is fine, so long as the meaning of the sentence is clear. Take these examples:

The house belonging to John, which is over 20 feet tall, is made of stone.
This is fine: the meaning - that the house is over 20 feet tall - is clear.

The house next to the church, which is over 20 feet tall, is made of stone.
This isn't so good, as it's unclear if the house or the church is over 20 feet tall.

Of course, what constitutes "clear meaning" is somewhat subjective. You'll find a few borderline cases that may be debatable. This is where getting plenty of experience of official problems is important. However, you'll notice that in most cases GMAT sticks to pretty obvious meaning errors; the borderline cases are pretty rare.

[JbhB682]

Hi Sage - the video is : Thursdays with Ron March 31 2011 - Which modifiers sentence Correction Ambiguous Pronouns

So there is a conflict

Per your understanding, below sentence would be accurate (as based upon meaning the which modifier obviously refers to the building clearly)

However per the video, this sentence is listed as wrong as the litmus test is

--- antecedents for which can only jump prepositional modifiers and not other kinds of modifiers


The old building that was built in Country X, which was 10 foot tall and five meters wide, is gone.

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

Thanks! It's quite possible that there is a conflict between Ron's understanding and mine. Please remember that neither of us has a secret channel to GMAT understanding: we've both looked at lots of examples and combined what we've found with our own understanding of English to come up with some principles for advising students how to approach GMAT problems. I'm generally skeptical of such specific rules as 'which modifiers can jump prepositional modifiers but not other kinds of modifier'. First, it's so specific that it's unlikely to have a wide application. Second, there's no guarantee that GMAT won't introduce a new example that breaks the rule in the future, even if they haven't already (remember that GMAT does change over time). And, finally and most importantly, I would discourage students from approaching problems in so complicated a way, as it tends to lead to the kind of errors I've seen you asking about in your other posts.