Saturday, May 9th, 2020
We all have studied modifiers in our school days. But since it is an optional element in the English language, it is not treated as an important topic. Then why do you need to learn about it now? Well, CAT and other MBA entrance exams often feature questions based on Sentence correction and these questions often contain modifier-based errors. Apart from that, it will help you improve your grammar and aid in tackling the verbal ability section.
But, what exactly is a modifier? What if, you want to be more specific while describing something? Well, that’s the very purpose of modifiers. As the name suggests, modifiers modify the meaning of the sentence, by making it more specific and detailed. Basically, modifier adds to the meaning of another element, on which it is dependent. The grammar of the sentence won’t be affected if you remove modifiers from the sentence.
Interestingly, they can assume the role of any type of parts of speech: adjectives, adverbs, adjective clauses, adverb clauses, prepositional phrases, participle phrases, infinitive phrases, etc. Modifiers can be a word, phrase or clause that qualifies other words in a sentence. Before learning about the kinds of errors that feature in modifier-based questions in CAT, let’s explore the various types of modifiers that we may come across:
Generally, modifiers take the following main forms:
Starting with the adjective modifiers, why do you think we need adjective modifiers? As you already know, adjectives are describing words. It modifies and describes a noun or pronoun. An adjective can function as a modifier in form of a single word, a phrase or a clause. Let’s discuss some examples for better understanding.
In other words, adjective modifiers answer the following questions with respect to the nouns they modify: What kind?, Which one?, How many? and, How much?
Another important type of modifiers is adverb modifiers. As you would guess, adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. Similar to adjective modifiers, adverb modifiers feature in form of a single word, phrase or a clause. Let’s explore the various kinds of adverb modifiers with the help of examples.
By now, you must have observed that the adverb modifiers function as an answer to the following questions with respect to the nouns/verbs they modify: When?, Where?, How often? and, How much?
Apart from the main types of modifiers (adjectives and adverbs), you also know about the prepositional and participle phrases that function as modifiers. Let’s see some more points related to them:
Further, modifiers are of two types according to their position with respect to the words they modify. These are pre-modifiers and post-modifiers. Most of the adjectives are pre-modifiers as they are generally placed before the nouns they modify. In contrast, most of the adverbs and prepositional phrases are post-modifiers since they come after the verbs/nouns they modify.
By now, you are well familiarized with the different kinds of modifiers. You must have observed that the modifiers make our sentences more effective and efficient. The next step is to learn about the kinds of errors that occur due to misplacement or incorrect usage of modifiers. Such errors change the meaning of the whole sentence. Generally, there are three major kinds of modifier errors:
Let’s discuss each of these with examples.
As the name suggests, the misplaced modifiers seem to modify/ describe the wrong set of words due to their incorrect placement in the sentence. Example: Mathew wants to buy a car from a sales associate with winter tyres.
In the above example, which words are described by the modifier ‘with winter tyres’? Sure, it would seem that the ‘sales associate needs to have winter tyres’. Well, that itself conveys that there is something wrong in the sentence. Now, what do you think will be the correct sentence?
Correct sentence: Mathew wants to buy a car with winter tires from a sales associate.
As you would guess, this sentence definitely conveys the right meaning: ‘with winter tyres’ modifies the noun ‘car’.
Another type of modifier error is the squinting modifier. Sounds complex? Well, that’s also how it is to identify this kind of error. Basically, this error is caused due to improper placement of adverbs in the sentence. In such a case, the structure of the sentence may seem correct but the meaning becomes ambiguous. Example: Students who skip their lectures often score poor marks.
What do you think the sentence wants to convey? You must be wondering over these two meanings:
But, why does this confusion exists? Well, because you can’t tell which part of the sentence the adverb ‘often’ modifies. For either of the meaning to exist, the correct form of sentences should be:
As you can see, there is no ambiguity in the meaning of either of the sentences. For the obvious reason, squinting modifier is also called two-way modifier.
The third type of modifier error is the dangling modifier. As the name suggests, a dangling modifier appears in sentences that seem incomplete. Such modifiers are placed in the beginning of the sentence which seems to miss the part being modified. Generally, these modifiers exist as participial phrases, prepositional phrases, or infinitive phrases. Example: At the age of seven, my family went on a trip to Victoria Falls.
What do you think the phrase ‘at the age of seven’ modifies? Well, you must have guessed that something is missing in the sentence. The correct way should be:
When I was seven, my family went on a trip to Victoria Falls.
Here, the phrase is changed to a dependent clause ‘When I was seven’.
Let’s take another example to get a better understanding of dangling modifiers.
Example: To win the game, a great effort was made. (What do the phrase ‘to win the game’ modifies?)
As you can guess, the subject is missing in this sentence. The correct way would be:
To win the task, she made a great effort.
Now that you know the kind of modifier errors, let’s explore some tips and rules to correct the modifier errors:
Now, you are well-versed with the different types of modifiers as well as modifier errors. The last step is to implement the above-stated rules and invest a good amount of time in practicing error-correction questions.
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