Identify the syntactic error in the sentence: 'Having finished the laboratory experiment, the final report was written by the research assistant.'
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: C. dangling modifier
- Step 1: The participial phrase 'Having finished the laboratory experiment' introduces the sentence and logically modifies the person who did the work. Because the grammatical subject of the passive main clause is 'the final report', the report is absurdly described as having finished the experiment. Answer: dangling modifier. Why not the others: "subject-verb disagreement" occurs when the subject noun and finite verb mismatch in grammatical number; "faulty parallel structure" violates grammatical symmetry across items in a coordinated series; "comma splice error" improperly joins two independent clauses using only a comma.
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