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Regarding pronouns, normally we speak some sentence including direct and indirect objects such as

Mohan servicing a vehicle by screwdriver. It is very costly

So now the "it is costly" refer to which? To vehicle or to screwdriver? I guess that it refer to vehicle because by screwdriver is a prepositional pharse.

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    Can you re-phrase the question? It is impossible to deduce anything from your context.
    – Varun Nair
    Nov 1, 2016 at 9:06
  • Please use single ' or double " quotation marks instead of bullets ●.
    – Em.
    Nov 1, 2016 at 10:16

1 Answer 1

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In this case, "it is very costly" refers to the service being done on the vehicle.

I would write the original sentence as "Mohan is servicing a vehicle by screwdriver" or "Mohan is servicing a vehicle with a screwdriver", so you must look at the action of the sentence as the "it".

The word costly generally refers to an action that is being taken. In "Mohan is buying a vehicle. It is very costly", costly refers to the action of buying the vehicle. However, if the action of buying the vehicle was not the focus of the sentence, the vehicle itself would be described as expensive, rather than costly. The same goes for the screwdriver, because it is also an object not an action: "Mohan is servicing an expensive vehicle by screwdriver".

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  • Ok but what is grammatically rules of pronoun in case there are two objects. Nov 1, 2016 at 12:52
  • You misunderstood Meg's point, @Merajhussain. This "it" refers to the entire earlier clause -- everything that belongs to the verb phrase "is servicing", the fact that it is a service and that Mohan performs the service and that the implement is a (or at least one) screwdriver. Changing any of those things could change the cost. Often, a pronoun refers to one word, but a pronoun can also refer to a phrase, a clause, a sentence, a paragraph, a book, or a global idea. Nov 2, 2016 at 2:19

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