OG103题，没人问过的修饰歧义？

lyyforever

103. Students in the metropolitan school district lack math skills to such a large degree as to make it difficult to absorb them into a city economy becoming ever more dependent on information-based industries.

(A)  lack math skills to such a large degree as to make it difficult to absorb them into a city economy becoming

(B)   lack math skills to a large enough degree that they will be difficult to absorb into a city's economy that becomes

(C)   lack of math skills is so large as to be difficult to absorb them into a city's economy that becomes

(D)  are lacking so much in math skills as to be difficult to absorb into a city's economy becoming

(E)   are so lacking in math skills that it will be difficult to absorb them into a city economy becoming

正确答案是E。

我的疑问是：becoming分词短语置于句尾，有可能产生修饰歧义：既能修饰economy，也能修饰全句主语students，所以我一上来就把becoming结尾的三个选项A、D、E给排除掉了。

再举两个OG分词短语置于句尾的例子。

1.  The Wallerstein study indicates that even after a decade young men and women still experience some of the effects of a divorce occurring when a child.

(A)  occurring when a child

(B)  occurring when children

(C)  that occurred when a child

(D)  that occurred when they were children （正确答案）

(E)   that has occurred as each was a child

OG的解释：Choice A incorrectly introduces the when... phrase with occurring, thus illogically making divorce the grammatical referent of when a child.

96. The National Transportation Safety Board has recommended the use of fail-safe mechanisms on airliner cargo door latches assuring the doors are properly closed before takeoff and to prevent them from popping open in flight.

(A)  assuring the doors are properly closed

(B)  for the assurance of proper closing

(C)  assuring proper closure

(D)  to assure closing the doors properly

(E)   to assure that the doors are properly closed（正确答案）

OG的解释：Moreover, the participial phrases in A and C (assuring... ), easily construed as adjectives modifying latches, are confusing.

请问：是不是ing分词短语优先考虑修饰前面的名词，而不是作伴随状语修饰主语？

[此贴子已经被作者于2005-11-24 17:46:03编辑过]

PositiveMind

无法权威直接回答楼主的问题，不过楼主的思考方向感觉很怪，修饰状语一般不可能离的很远吧

1题强调的是when从句和ing状态形式有冲突，96的解释的确可能给楼主造成了一些困惑吧，看平行应该很清楚了

我对于1题倒有个另外的问题：以下的用法对吗？

that occured when a child/as child/when children/as children?

不考虑主语单复，我只是想搞清楚以上用法，个人感觉when child, as a child是不对的，所以没列

                  

ProteinMonica

修饰全句主语students的话至少前面要加个逗号，如果紧跟在某个词后应该是直接修饰这个词

lyyforever

谢谢PositiveMind和ProteinMonica，没想到这么快就有了答复。谢谢！

Monica的答复解开了我的疑惑。我刚才又找了几道题验证了一下。谢谢你啊！

关于PositiveMind的问题，我试着解释一下，白勇语法里说：表时间、条件、转折的连词(when/while/if/ unless/altough/ even though/even if)后面不能接介词短语或名词短语，必须补齐主语和谓语；可以接形容词短语/分词短语(逻辑主语等于句子主语)。所以，when后面直接接名词是肯定不对的。

as a child语法上是对的，不过可能也要结合上下文使用吧。PositiveMind，你可以看一下OG69题。