<p>To understand twentieth-century economic practices, one must be sufficiently familiar with Keynesian theories, whether one agrees with them or not.</p>
<p>Answer: No Error My Question: Isn't "them" ambiguous? It could refer back to economic practices or Keynesian theories...right?</p>
<p>Or is there a rule regarding which nouns can be antecedents to the pronouns? Can nouns inside a prepositional phrase be the antecedent to a pronoun later in the sentence. For example: "Between Kelly and John, she is the most qualified." Is this allowed? Can "she" refer back to "Kelly" even though Kelly is the object of the preposition?</p>
<p>The proximity of “Kaynesian theories” to “them” reduces (and perhaps eliminates) the ambiguity.</p>
<p>If the sentence were turned around a bit:</p>
<p>One must be sufficiently familiar with Keynesian theories to understand twentieth-century economic practices, whether one agrees with them or not.</p>
<p>Then the “them” by the proximity argument would refer to “economic practices”, which may not be the author’s intent.</p>
<p>Best is to avoid the “them” and replace it with a direct reference.</p>
<p>For your other question “Between Kelly and John, she is the most qualified.” she clearly refers to Kelly (it’s feminine) so there is no ambiguity. But what if the sentence were "Between Jane and Mary, she … ". Best is to avoid the “she” in both cases and replace it with a direct reference.</p>
<p>I’m not aware of the rule you posit. Try to apply it to: "Between Jane and Mary, she … " and the “she” reference remains ambiguous no matter how you state the rule.</p>
<p>Just a quick comment on "“Between Kelly and John”: since two people are being compared, it should be “she is the more qualified” instead of “she is the most qualified” (comparative vs. superlative).</p>
<p>How does proximity alone reduce the ambiguity? I have encountered problems where the proximity did not matter and the error was still an ambiguous pronoun.</p>
<p>For example: The cat, as well as the dog, has a tail on its bottom. </p>
<p>The “its” is closest to the dog, but the pronoun still sounds ambiguous.</p>
<p>Proximity of the antecedent doesn’t reduce the ambiguity of the pronoun, but the context and meaning of the sentence do. In that sentence, “them” clearly refers to “Keynesian theories” because that makes sense. It wouldn’t make sense in meaning if “them” referred to “twentieth-century economic practices.” Therefore, “them” is not ambiguous.</p>
<p>Here is another example: “Kelly told Seline that she couldn’t see her because of an emergency and apologized.” It is clear that “she” refers to “Kelly” and “her” refers to “Seline,” even though there are two possible female antecedents, because the meaning of the sentence makes clear what is meant.</p>
<p>Crazybandit/ I agree that the context of the original sentence makes it clear that them refers to the theories. However, I don’t think I can support your example sentence. Logically, it is quite possible that she can refer to either Kelly or Seline.</p>
<p>1.) The first world computer chess championship, held in Stockholm, was won by a Russian computer program called Kaissa; it was won by four victories and no defeats. </p>
<p>CB explanation as to why this sentence is grammatically incorrect:
*Choice (E) results in improper pronoun reference. The pronoun it refers to the championship rather than to Kaissa. *</p>
<p>Collegeboard says, in this sentence, “it” refers back to championship, which is farther away in proximity than the other singular noun “computer program.” CB says this sentence has a clear antecedent, but I think it is ambiguous. Why does “it” in this sentence refer back to championship?</p>