Identify the syntactic error in the following sentence: 'Walking through the ancient ruins of Delphi, the temple columns appeared magnificent against the sunset.'
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: A. dangling modifier
- Step 1: The introductory participial phrase 'Walking through the ancient ruins of Delphi' grammatically modifies the subject of the main clause. Because 'the temple columns' cannot physically walk, the participial modifier has no logical agent to modify, creating a dangling modifier. Answer: dangling modifier. Why not the others: "faulty parallel coordinate verbs" occurs when items in a coordinate series fail to maintain identical grammatical forms; "comma splice error" occurs when two independent clauses are joined solely by a comma without a conjunction; "ambiguous pronoun reference" arises when a pronoun could grammatically refer to more than one possible antecedent.
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