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Exp Posted 6 years ago
Grammar

In which the same respondents were asked every year

Figure 1 is taken from an analysis by Andrew Clark, Ed Diener, and Yannis Georgellis of the German Socio-Economic Panel, in which the same respondents were asked every year about their satisfaction with their life. (NOTE: The German Socio-Economic Panel is "a longitudinal survey of approximately 11,000 private households in the Federal Republic of Germany from 1984 to 2017 and the eastern German länder from 1990 to 2017.")

?Which part does the relative clause "in which the same respondents were asked every year about their satisfaction with their life" modify? Is it "the German Socio-Economic Panel (=a longitudinal survey), in which the same respondents...." or "an analysis, in which the same respondents...."?

?Does the prepositional phrase "of the German Socio-Economic Panel" refer to the object of the analysis (an analysis of the German Socio-Economic Panel, which is a longitudinal survey), or the organization that those researchers (Andrew Clark et al.) belong to?

Andrew Clark and the rest first asked "the same respondents... every year about their satisfaction with their life" in the German Socio-Economic Panel, which is a longitudinal survey, and then analyzed the survey result, and then (the person who quoted the survey) presented some summary of their data analysis in "Figure 1." Correct?

They asked "the same respondents...." in the survey (the German Socio-Economic Panel) and not in the analysis. For a "survey" is "a set of questions that you ask a large number of people in order to find out about their opinions or behaviour," whereas an "analysis" is "a careful examination of something in order to understand it better." Thus the relative clause "in which the same respondents were asked every year about their satisfaction with their life" in the passage above describes the content of the survey (the German Socio-Economic Panel) and not of the analysis. In other words, the relative clause modifies the noun phrase "the German Socio-Economic Panel" and not the noun "analysis." Correct?

  

Top answer

According to normal understanding, a "panel" is a group of people, so it seems at first that the relative clause cannot modify "German Socio-Economic Panel", but must modify "analysis", and that the "of" phrase is telling us that those three people sit on the panel. However, the note in your text explains, unexpectedly, that this "panel" is actually the survey , in which case the relative clause does in fact modify "panel", and the "of" phrase does in fact refer to the object of the analysis. It is a highly misleading sentence for those unfamiliar with this "panel".

— GPY

  • According to normal understanding, a "panel" is a group of people, so it seems at first that the relative clause cannot modify "German Socio-Economic Panel", but must modify "analysis", and that the "of" phrase is telling us that those three people sit on the panel.
  • However, the note in your text explains, unexpectedly, that this "panel" is actually the survey , in which case the relative clause does in fact modify "panel", and the "of" phrase does in fact refer to the object of the analysis.
  • It is a highly misleading sentence for those unfamiliar with this "panel".
  • Exp Andrew Clark and the rest first asked "the same respondents...
  • " Correct?
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3 Answers
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According to normal understanding, a "panel" is a group of people, so it seems at first that the relative clause cannot modify "German Socio-Economic Panel", but must modify "analysis", and that the "of" phrase is telling us that those three people sit on the panel. However, the note in your text explains, unexpectedly, that this "panel" is actually the survey, in which case the relativ

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Figure 1 is taken from an analysis by Andrew Clark, Ed Diener, and Yannis Georgellis of the German Socio-Economic Panel, in which the same respondents were asked every year about their satisfaction with their life. (NOTE: The German Socio-Economic Panel is "a longitudinal survey of approximately 11,000 private households in the Federal Republic of Germany from 1984 to 2017 and the ea

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Thanks.

So "modify" wasn't the right word, as there is a comma in front of the relative clause. The relative clause "supplements" the referent, which is, in this case (albeit quite confusing), "The German Socio-Economic Panel." But on casual reading, without the knowledge of what "The German Socio-Economic Panel" is, most native speakers would assume the referent as being the "analysis"

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