Re: ambiugous sentences

["Richard G. Combs" <richard -dot- combs -at- voyanttech -dot- com>]

Sean Hower illustrated how one can misparse the sentence "The horse raced
past the barn fell":

<snip> The idea in a sentence like "The horse raced past the barn fell" is
that while you're listening to/reading the sentence, your brain parces it
like this:
>
> ((The horse) + ((raced) + (past the barn))).
>
<snip> It should really be parsed something like this:
>
> (((The horse) + (raced past the barn)) + (fell)).
>

Nice, Sean, but you haven't explained _why_ it can be misparsed (and why
changing "raced" to "run" destroys the "garden path" nature of the
sentence): In this sentence, "raced" can be read as either an _intransitive_
or a _transitive_ verb.

Upon first reading the sentence, you assume "raced" is intransitive: the
horse acted in a way best described as racing. But, when you get to "fell,"
you realize that the horse acted in a way best described as falling, and
that "raced" is a transitive verb of which "the horse" is the object. The
horse didn't race past the barn by itself, someone unspecified raced it past
the barn.

Changing the modifying phrase to "that was raced" (or, better, "that she
raced" -- avoid passive voice) removes the ambiguity. It's immediately clear
that, with regard to racing, the horse wasn't the actor, but the acted-upon.

And, unless there are horse runs (noun), "The horse run past the barn fell"
isn't ambiguous at all because "run" can't be an intransitive verb in this
sentence; it doesn't agree in number with "horse." You could restore the
ambiguity by making the subject plural: "The horses run past the barn fell."

> Drat, I wish I could draw the tree diagram to show how "The horse raced
past the barn" "The horse raced past the barn fell" and "The horse that was
raced past the barn fell" are parced.
>
Well, here's a crude stab at the first 2, omitting articles:

1)       horse   |    raced
      ---------------------------
                           \ p
                            \ a
                             \ s
                              \ t
                               \     barn
                                -------------


2)       horse   |    fell
      ---------------------------
            \
             \   raced
              ------------
                          \ p
                           \ a
                            \ s
                             \ t
                              \     barn
                               -------------

This is long enough already, so I'll leave (3) as an exercise for the
reader. ;-)

Richard


------
Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Voyant Technologies, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT voyanttechDOTcom
303-223-5111
------
rgcombs AT freeDASHmarketDOTnet
303-777-0436
------








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