The health commissioner said - MGMAT Qtn

[divineacclivity]

I'm picking rfernandez's sentence from the explanation above:
"The quarterback said, despite his recent successful season, that he would retire."

Is the following one also correct (I've moved "that"):
The quarterback said that despite his recent successful season, he would retire.

Thank you very much in advance.

[tim]

although they mean very different things, neither example has a grammatical error..

[divineacclivity]

Oh, ok, the difference is:

"The quarterback said, despite his recent successful season, that he would retire." => He said despite the successful season i.e. "despite" modifies verb "said"

"The quarterback said that despite his recent successful season, he would retire." => He said that he'd retire despite the successful season i.e. "despite" modifies verb "would retire"

Am i right? thanks in advance.

[tim]

totally. good work!

[divineacclivity]

thank you :)

[tim]

:)

[rai.shweta]

In the given statement of the form:
The health commissioner said that government .... and that it ...

can the relative pronoun it refer back to government? I thought as they are in two different clause, the relative pronoun can not refer back to earlier clause but will refer to the main subject (i.e. health commissioner). But, as we want it to refer to government, we should not separate the clauses using that

Please advise what is wrong in my understanding here?

[RonPurewal]

"It" can refer perfectly well to "government". (It couldn't refer to "health commissioner", even if you wanted it to, because a "health commissioner" is a person.)

In general, it's best not to complicate the issue of pronouns.

If ...

1/
there's a noun that matches the pronoun (in terms of singular/plural),

2/
it's obvious, at a glance, which noun that is,

... then the pronoun is ok.

[RonPurewal]

The problem with "said that X and Y" is that it's potentially ambiguous:
1/ (...said that X) and (Y)
2/ ...said that (X and Y)

For instance,
John said that he would attend the charity event and his sister donated goods for the auction.
We don't know if this means...
1/ John said that he'd come. Also, his sister donated some money (separate fact, not stated by John).
2/ John said both of these things.

"...said that X and that Y" unambiguously means that someone said both things.

[rustom.hakimiyan]

Hi --

When I first read this, I took out B/E containing "that" because I figured that a comma cannot precede "that". I'm thinking that I was wrong because the comma is part of the modifier "despite the recent illness" instead of the actual sentence.

I'm a little confused about the use of will vs. would. I read earlier in the thread that we use "would" when we refer to a future event from the past perspective. What in the sentence indicates that we are referring from the past perspective. Is the governor making this comment(in the present) about a past event and a future event?

Thanks!

[RonPurewal]

Hi --

When I first read this, I took out B/E containing "that" because I figured that a comma cannot precede "that". I'm thinking that I was wrong because the comma is part of the modifier "despite the recent illness" instead of the actual sentence.

precisely.

[RonPurewal]

I'm a little confused about the use of will vs. would. I read earlier in the thread that we use "would" when we refer to a future event from the past perspective. What in the sentence indicates that we are referring from the past perspective. Is the governor making this comment(in the present) about a past event and a future event?

Thanks!

"had implemented" commits the sentence to a past point of view ("POV"). so, "would".

"will" works only if the sentence has a present POV. for that to be the case, we'd need "has/have ___ed" rather than "had __ed".

[RonPurewal]

by the way, either of the 2 combinations above ("had __ed ... would ..." and "has/have ___ed ... will ... ") is compatible with "said".

• obviously "said" works if the POV is in the past, since "said" is past tense.

• however, we can also have "said" + sentence with present POV, since it's perfectly possible for someone to have (recently) said something that's still in effect.
e.g.,
Saul said yesterday that he has finally decided to change his bad habits and that he will no longer drink alcohol.
(= these are present commitments; he told me about them yesterday)

[Krish101]

Correct version: He said that X and, despite the recent illnesses, that Y.

But if the second clause is different (as shown below), then the comma after "and" will change position; it should be placed before "and".

He said that X, and despite the recent improvements, he resigned [...].

Is my understanding correct?

Thanks,
Krish

[rohit.manglik]

HI Ron,

I am confused between options B and E.

We have "had implemented", which is past perfect, so we need a past simple event. With this logic I chose B (tried).

Can you please explain what I am missing.