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In the sentense

We have attempted to combine the pragmatic approach of the practicing physicist with the quantitative approach of the engineer, who wants a thoroughly evaluated circuit design.

Which one does who refer to? Is who refer to "We" or "the engineer"?

Thank you.

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  • The sentence has poorly evaluated circuitry.
    – TimR
    Commented Oct 20 at 11:43
  • @TimR I'm sorry, my native language isn't English, and I didn't understand what you were saying.
    – Tom
    Commented Oct 20 at 12:11
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    "pragmatic" and "quantitative" are not distinct enough to set in opposition to begin with, for one thing, and the sentence is imbalanced: it needs a clause to set against "who wants a thorougly evaluated circuit design" to go with "pragmatic". "... the pragmatic approach of the practicing physicist who wants {something}, with the quantitative approach of the engineer, who wants ..."
    – TimR
    Commented Oct 20 at 14:08
  • @TimR Thank you for your detail explain, the sentense in my question is source from <The Art of Electronics> third edition lie at PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. "... the pragmatic approach of the practicing physicist who wants {something}, with the quantitative approach of the engineer, who wants ..." that you written is easy to understand. Thank you very much.
    – Tom
    Commented Oct 21 at 0:09

2 Answers 2

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The relative pronoun usually has the nearest noun as its antecedent, unless the context clearly suggests otherwise. In this case, the engineer is the antecedent. Furthermore, the singular wants rules out we.

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  • Thank you for your answer.
    – Tom
    Commented Oct 20 at 7:32
  • Even though Tom's already accepted that Answer no, here the singular 'wants' clearly does not rule out 'we'. Here, 'we' refers to the authors and quite separately, 'who wants' refers to someone else. '… the practicing physicist…' who whether imaginary or a particular, real person is not one the authors. The two are clearly separate. Singular 'wants' clearly refers to one; plural 'we' clearly refers to the other. The two are not to be compared. Nothing in the sentence rules out anything else. Still yes, 'who' refers to the engineer, not to the authors.
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Commented Oct 27 at 22:00
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The verb form wants doesn't correspond with we - it's we want. Also, as we is the subject of the sentence, there is no reason to include the word who. Therefore, who must refer to the engineer.

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  • Thank you for your answer.
    – Tom
    Commented Oct 20 at 7:32

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