Although misplaced modifiers are far less common than dangling modifiers, they do appear from time to time. They may also, in very rare instances, appear in the Error- Identification section.
Unlike dangling modifiers, misplaced modifiers do not necessarily involve introductory clauses and can occur anywhere in a sentence. They do, however, also involve modifiers separated from the words or phrases they are intended to modify and often result in sentences whose meanings are unintentionally ridiculous.
Incorr ect:
Alexander Fleming discovered the first antibiotic accidentally introducing contamination into a laboratory experiment.
In the above sentence, it sounds as if the first antibiotic was responsible for accidentally introducing contamination into a laboratory experiment, when it was clearly Fleming who introduced the contamination.
In order to correct the sentence, we need to make it clear that Fleming was responsible for the contamination.
Corr ect:
Alexander Fleming discovered the first antibiotic when he accidentally introduced contamination into a laboratory experiment.
Misplaced Modifier Exercises
In the following sentences, correct any misplaced modification error that occurs. Some of the sentences may not contain an error. (Answers p. 161, Official Guide question list p. 138)
1. The Spanish city of Valencia is the birthplace of horchata, a drink said to date from the eighth century made from the juice of tiger nuts.
2. Claude McKay was one of the most important poets of the Harlem Renaissance that moved to New York after studying agronomy in Kansas.
3. The California Street Cable Railroad is an established public transit company in San Francisco, which was founded by Leland Stanford.
4. Many police officers have switched from patrolling city streets on horseback to patrolling them in cars, which have become the most popular form of urban transportation.
5. Cartoonist Paul Conrad was known for his acerbic depictions of contemporary politicians spending nearly three decades on staff at the Los Angeles Times.
6. Many ancient cities were protected from bands of invaders by fortresses roaming in search of settlements to plunder.
7. Some of the world’s fastest trains run between the cities of Tokyo and Kyoto, which can reach speeds of up to 200 miles per hour.
8. Originally constructed during the Roman Republic, the House of Livia contains brightly colored frescoes dating back to the first decades B.C. that depict bucolic landscapes and mythological scenes.
9. The Georgian port of Batumi fell into decline in the mid-twentieth century, which once housed some of the world’s first oil pipelines.
10. The bass viol has experienced a resurgence in popularity over the past several decades resembling the cello.
23. PARALLEL STRUCTURE II: PHRASES
Unlike the “list” form of parallel structure described in Chapter Seven, this kind of parallel structure requires you to work with phrases rather than single words. And also unlike list parallel structure, it usually – though not always – involves only two items.
The most difficult “phrase” parallel structure questions typically appear at the end of Fixing Sentences – usually as one of the last three questions, most often as the final question. In their simpler form (see the first example below), they may also occasionally appear in the Error-Identification Section or at the beginning of Fixing Sentences.
Since you will most likely encounter these questions after sitting through more than four hours of test-taking, the point at which you are most likely to be fatigued, it is important that you be able to recognize them without too much effort. These questions can be identified by the presence of certain conjunctions or comparisons:
-And -But
-Not only…but also -So…that
-At once…and -Both…and
-Any other word pair (for the complete list, see p. 53)
If one of these conjunctions appears on the final sentence of a Fixing Sentences section, it is virtually guaranteed to be a parallel structure question. The rule is as follows:
The construction on one side of any given conjunction or comparison must match the construction on the other side of the conjunction or comparison as closely as possible.
If one side contains the construction noun + preposition + noun, the other must contain
noun + preposition + noun; if one side contains a preposition, the other must contain a
preposition, etc.
If the two sides do not match in their constructions, the result is an error in parallel structure.
Incorr ect:
More than simply providing badly needed space in cramped cities, skyscrapers connect people, and creativity is fostered in them.
The presence of the word and tells us that the constructions on either side of it must match. But since one side is active and the other passive, the construction is not parallel. To correct it, we must make both sides active:
Corr ect:
More than simply providing badly needed space in cramped cities, skyscrapers connect people and foster creativity.
Now we’re going to try something a little harder:
Incorr
ect: regulations as well as investigating teenagers’ motivations for smoking. The researchers called for enforcement of existing cigarette sale In the above sentence, the construction on either side of the conjunction as well as must be the same.
So next we want to look at the specific construction of those two pieces of information. What did the researchers call for?
1) enforcement of existing cigarette sale regulations 2) investigating teenagers’ motivations for smoking
When we examine the two sides, we see that their constructions do not match.
-The first one contains the classic noun + of + noun structure (enforcement of…
regulations).
-The second contains a gerund + noun structure (investigating…motivations).
To make the two sides parallel, we must replace the gerund investigating with its noun form, investigation, and add of.
Corr ect:
The researchers called for enforcement of existing cigarette sale
regulations as well as an investigation of teenagers’ motivations for smoking.
Occasionally, this type of parallel structure question will include a third item. In such cases, the principle is exactly the same: each item must contain noun + of + noun.
Incorr ect:
A remarkable self-publicist, Margaret Cavendish was a composer of poetry, a writer of philosophy, plus she invented romances.
Corre ct:
A remarkable self-publicist, Margaret Cavendish was a composer of poetry, a writer of philosophy, and an inventor of romances.
Important: parallel structure questions frequently double as word-pair questions. If you can spot the word pair, you can often eliminate several answers immediately.