How can I explain the statement " The immigrant is the father of a young child, and he has a health problem.

Question

A student of mine says she learned in grammar class today that the above sentence I just posted is vague and does not make sense. She said the sentence does not clearly say who is sick. It is evasive. In order for her to do her assignment she said she needs to know clearly who is sick. Many sentences I hand out in History are like this. I am not an English teacher. How can I explain this in simple terms that the sentence is correct. She further says it is just inferring it is the grandfather, but does not clearly say this with the information provided. " Here is the sentence again. " The immigrant is the father of a young child, and he has a serious health problem. She feels the word "He" does not necessarily mean the grandfather and could be the child who is the he in this sentence. To me it was common sense that they meant the grandfather. The student does not except that explanation. Any English teachers can you help me?

Answer 1

I agree wholeheartedly with the student. And I can see you are not an English major or teacher by how you spelled "except" instead of "accept." The pronoun "he" in the second clause of the sentence IS ambiguous in its referent. The statement should be changed to read "The immigrant, who has a health problem, is the father of a young child." if it is indeed the father who is sick. If it is the child it should read, "The immigrant is the father of a young child who has a health problem." That would eliminate the ambiguity.

Answer 2

Your student has a problem with pronoun reference. In the first part of the sentence, the father (the immigrant) is the subject. In the second part (after the and), HE is the subject, therefore HE refers to the father. If your student consistently has this problem, I would refer her for a speech and language eval. Another way to look at it: AND is used to add or compare information (in contrast to BUT). When you use AND, you are adding information about the father, not the child. Good luck!

Answer 3

the problem is proximity "...child, and he..." infers that sick refers to he rather than the original antecedent. Grammatically, the sentence is correct, the subject of it is clearly the immigrant, so the illness is his, but clearer to use commas..."the immigrant, father of a young child, has..." clarifies that the illness refers to the subject. And, the student does not "accept" that explanation (homophone.)