Re: Modifiers by simile

On Monday 29 October 2007 11:27, caeruleancentaur wrote:
>
> To avoid the ambiguity can you not reverse the modifiers and say, at
> least in this example, "clock color-of-wood and weight-of-microwave
> used-in-restaurant"?
>
> Must size description precede color description?
You're missing the forest for the trees here.

You're right, in this case the order of the modifiers can be reversed.

But this was just an example of a more general problem; perhaps a more formal
approach would make it more apparent:

In the simplest case, we have:

noun modifier-A

Here modifier-A clearly modifies the noun, so there's no ambiguity.

A bit more complex case:

noun modifier-A modifier-B

Here there is ambiguity introduced because it's not clear if modifier-B
modifies the noun or modifier-A.  We can perhaps rectify that by introducing
an inclusive coordinating conjunction (somethin akin to the English "and")
and get:

noun modifier-A conjunction-A modifier-B

Where conjunction-A tells us that both modifier-A and modifier-B modify the
noun.

In the example I gave in my previous post to the list, we had a more complex
case:

noun modifier-A modifier-B conjunction-A modifier-C

This introduces the ambiguity with regards to whether modifier-C modifies the
noun or modifier-A.  conjunction-A makes it clear that it does not modify
modifier-B.

You suggested, as a solution:

noun modifier-C conjunction-A modifier-A modifier-B

Which eliminates the ambiguity in my original example (and cases formally
equivalent to it), but still does not solve the general problem, as
exemplified by:

noun modifier-A modifier-B conjunction-A modifier-C modifier-D

The absence of a conjunction between modifier-A and modifier-B makes it clear
that modifier-B is modifying modifier-A, and the same absence between
modifier-C and modifier-D makes it clear that modifier-D is modifying
modifier-C.  But is modifier-C modifying the noun or modifier-A?

Let's say the speaker intended for modifier-C to modify the noun.  He can try
to rectify this by employing essentially the same solution you gave above to
a simpler example, in which case he gets:

noun modifier-C modifier-D conjunction-A modifier-A modifier-B

But that still suffers from the same ambiguity, only now it's with modifier-A
--
Kurt Weber
<kmw@...>

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