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Stenka25 Posted 12 years ago
Vocabulary
What does “their” stand for?
The following passage is from the website as follows:
http://www.epubbud.com/read.php?g=H8AVF5J5&tocp=8
A century later, the gradual dismantling of apartheid and segregation was helped by commercialisation, too. The American civil rights movement drew its strength partly from a great economic migration. More African-Americans left the South between 1940 and 1970 than Poles, Jews, Italians or Irish had arrived in America as immigrants during their great migrations. Lured by better jobs or displaced by mechanical cotton pickers, black share-croppers came to the cities of the industrial North and began to discover their economic and political voice.
In this passage I’m not 100% sure about what the underlined ‘their’ represents.
It seems to stand for ‘African-Americans’ in the sense of context.
But I cannot exclude the thin possibility of its referring to ‘Poles, Jews, Italians or Irish.’
Wish for your response.
Thanks in advance.
http://www.epubbud.com/read.php?g=H8AVF5J5&tocp=8
A century later, the gradual dismantling of apartheid and segregation was helped by commercialisation, too. The American civil rights movement drew its strength partly from a great economic migration. More African-Americans left the South between 1940 and 1970 than Poles, Jews, Italians or Irish had arrived in America as immigrants during their great migrations. Lured by better jobs or displaced by mechanical cotton pickers, black share-croppers came to the cities of the industrial North and began to discover their economic and political voice.
In this passage I’m not 100% sure about what the underlined ‘their’ represents.
It seems to stand for ‘African-Americans’ in the sense of context.
But I cannot exclude the thin possibility of its referring to ‘Poles, Jews, Italians or Irish.’
Wish for your response.
Thanks in advance.
Top answer
’ That seems the right referent to me.
- ’ That seems the right referent to me.
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4 Answers
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Stenka25But I cannot exclude the thin possibility of its referring to ‘Poles, Jews, Italians or Irish.’That seems the right referent to me.
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There is no question about this. First, the plural, "migrations," can only refer to the migrations of the four groups - Poles, Jews, Italians, and Irish. If you were somehow talking about the movement of African-Americans from the South to the North, this would be singular, "migration," since you're talking about one group. And the structure of the sentence allows only one interpretation: "...t
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