OG SC 第19题E选项

hellozhoujiang

Sunspots, vortices of gas associated with strong electromagetic activity, are visible as dark spots on the surface of the Sun but have never been sighted on the Sun's poles or equator.
a. 如原题
b. are visible as dark spots that never have been sighted on the surface of the Sun
c. appear on the surface of the Sun as dark spots although never sighted at
d.appear as dark spots on the surface of the Sun, although never having been sighted at
e. appear as dark spots on the Sun's surface, which have never been sighted on


本次就讨论E选项~大神们觉得E的问题到底出在哪里？
OG 的解释是“This phrasing makes the sentence somewhat awkward and unclear".
之前看到有说which只能就近指代surface,所以E错。
但是我觉得这种解释有点牵强，因为which 谓语动词是复数have，所以在这里which只能指代spots.
我能看到的比较awkward的地方是”Sun's surface"表达比较别扭。
还请各位大神赐教。

zszszssz

你搞错了一点，不是用了 ”have“  which 就可以指代 spots了，在语法上这里 which 只能指代 surface，verb要跟随主语变化，而不是主语的意思随verb改变。你要先判断 which指代誰，再判断 verb 对不对。

danlovely28

LZ 我想问一下你这个是OG 16 吗？

guoyilin2015

which可以指sun's surface，也可以指spots on the Sun's surface
注意have与surface主谓不一致，并且sun's surface不能在sun's pole被看到不是句子本意
所以which只能指代spots on the Sun's surface
但是这句意思是Sunspots以spots on surface形式出现，spots on the surface不能在pole被看到
A的意思是Sunspots是spots on the surface，但是Sunspots不能在pole看到
作为一个描述sunspots特点的句子，还是A更好。

hellozhoujiang

zszszssz 发表于 2015-9-17 17:55
你搞错了一点，不是用了 ”have“  which 就可以指代 spots了，在语法上这里 which 只能指代 surface，verb ...

您的观点我不敢苟同。曼哈顿语法第6版71页：

The majority of the time, a noun and its modifier will be placed right next to each other,
with no other words intervening. In certain circumstances, though, a noun and its modifier
may be separated by another modifier. For example:

The box of nails, which is nearly full, belongs to jean.

The noun box has two modifiers: of nails and which is nearly full. They cant both be placed
right after the noun; one has to come first.
An essential modifier trumps a nonessential modifier. Of nails is an essential modifier
(which box? the box of nails), so it is placed immediately after box. The "comma which"
modifier is a nonessential modifier, so it can come second. In this case, the which modifier
refers to the closest preceding main noun, box.

类似地，题中E项which的用法从纯语法的角度本身没有错误。

zszszssz

hellozhoujiang 发表于 2015-9-29 14:12
您的观点我不敢苟同。曼哈顿语法第6版71页：

The majority of the time, a noun and its modifier will  ...

which 可以跳过必要的介词短语，但只是必要的，你不能说是个介词短语他都可以跳，这种地方就算你可以指代sunspots也要算有歧义的可能。