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Re: THEORY: Adpositional Heads

From:Joe <joe@...>
Date:Thursday, September 11, 2003, 17:44
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Cowan" <jcowan@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2003 6:38 PM
Subject: Re: THEORY: Adpositional Heads


> Isidora Zamora scripsit: > > > Does the sentence "I saw a man in the house." create any ambiguity in
other
> > languages as to whether the prepositional phrase is adverbial or > > adjectival? Is this ambiguity a problem? If so, how can it be > > disambiguated? > > PP-attachment ambiguity comes in several flavors, and many but not all > languages allow it. In Latin it doesn't exist, as all PPs are adverbial. > That's why anglophone Christians pray "Our Father who is in Heaven", in > imitation of the Latin "Pater noster qui es in caelis"; "Pater noster in
caelis"
> would be ungrammatical.
I don't think I've ever heard 'our Father who is in heaven' 'who art', 'which art' and just 'in heaven', but never 'who is in heaven'

Replies

John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Isidora Zamora <isidora@...>