Timeline for why is this ambiguous sentence disambiguated in its wh-question form?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 19, 2022 at 9:20 | comment | added | Agent Chuobao | Now I'm getting it, thanks! | |
| Nov 18, 2022 at 17:12 | comment | added | Draconis♦ | @AgentChuobao The names of types of islands vary a lot by author, in my experience. I would just say it's an NP island. | |
| Nov 18, 2022 at 13:21 | comment | added | Agent Chuobao | Thank you sooo much! But I have one more question. What type of island is it? I suppose it's a noun-complement island, but I'm not sure about it.... | |
| Nov 12, 2022 at 6:42 | vote | accept | Agent Chuobao | ||
| Nov 11, 2022 at 2:42 | history | edited | Draconis♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
deleted 18 characters in body
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| Nov 10, 2022 at 18:06 | comment | added | Araucaria - him | I think the sentence is, syntactically, (at least) triply ambiguous. The PP could be a modifier within the NP, it could be a complement of the verb see, it could be an adjunct within the clause. | |
| Nov 10, 2022 at 17:48 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | Hmm, I read it the other way around. One possible syntactic structure (PP inside NP) is not semantically ambiguous, but the other (PP outside NP) is, so listing both semantic options to me precludes it being about the syntax. But then of course the fact that the semantic ambiguity isn’t resolved by the question equally precludes it being about the semantic ambiguity. Perhaps it’s about a third ambiguity that I just haven’t discovered… | |
| Nov 10, 2022 at 17:17 | comment | added | Draconis♦ | @JanusBahsJacquet Given the wording of the question, I figure they're asking about the syntactic ambiguity specifically: about whether the PP is attached to the NP or the VP. Since otherwise, as you point out, the question doesn't work. | |
| Nov 10, 2022 at 17:15 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | This is undoubtedly true syntactically, but the ambiguity is semantic, so I’m not convinced it really answers the question. Even disqualifying any reading that has the PP as part of any NP, the PP still modifies a NP, and it is unclear which one (subject or object). But as noted in the comments, the premise of the question is false: this ambiguity is not actually resolved by turning it into a question. If I’m in the kitchen and the man is in the hall, I can answer the question “In which room did you see the man?” with either the kitchen or the hall – both make sense. | |
| Nov 10, 2022 at 16:26 | history | answered | Draconis♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |