Nobody knows exactly how many languages there are in the world, partly because of the difficulty of distinguishing between a language and the sublanguages or dialects within it, but those who have tried to count typically have found about five thousand.
Understand the meaning of the sentence and determine the logical antecedent
Per the sentence:
- No one knows the exact number of languages in the world
- This is because of the difficulty of distinguishing between two things:
- A language
- Sublanguages and dialects within it.
Thus, it will only make sense if “it” refers to “language” -> difficulty of distinguishing between
- A language and sublanguages
- A language and the dialects with this language.
Thus “language” is the logical antecedent for the pronoun “it”.
Determine if any other antecedents can be referred to by this pronoun
Since pronoun “it” is singular, here are the possible antecedents – the singular nouns
• World
• Language
It will not make sense for “it” to refer to world. Also, world is too far away from the pronoun and in fact it is in a logically different part of the sentence.
There is no pronoun ambiguity in this sentence.
Take away Message
So in this sentence, we went purely by the meaning and decided the logical antecedent for the pronoun. Then we looked for other possible references that could be made to determine if there is any scope of ambiguity.
- Understand the meaning of the sentence and determine the logical antecedent – “it” logically refers to “language”
- Determine if there is ambiguity in pronoun reference: Find if the pronoun can refer to any other noun – World is one more singular noun. “world” is too far away from the pronoun “it”. Hence no pronoun ambiguity
Where can you get more information?
The basics of pronoun are covered in detail in the “pronouns” concept file available for e-GMAT users in the SC free trial. You can access this trial by logging in the e-Gmat website.
Review this post to find the detail of the framework for pronouns.
Other official questions are also analyzed using the pronoun framework.
OG#78 – Fossils of the arm of the sloth
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