Book contents
- Adventures in English Syntax
- Adventures in English Syntax
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Additional material
- 1 an adventure in ambiguity with one fish two fish
- 2 exceptional students and teachers
- 3 Introduction to Language and Linguistics
- 4 a review of a book by two philosophers
- 5 Bob is certain to succeed.
- 6 It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
- 7 Does every politician who cheats instinctively lie?
- 8 Inferior defenses could then, as now, be tackled, as Vernon did at Porto Bello, Exmouth at Algiers, & Seymour at Alexandria.
- Glossary
- References
- Index
1 - an adventure in ambiguity with one fish two fish
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 February 2020
- Adventures in English Syntax
- Adventures in English Syntax
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Additional material
- 1 an adventure in ambiguity with one fish two fish
- 2 exceptional students and teachers
- 3 Introduction to Language and Linguistics
- 4 a review of a book by two philosophers
- 5 Bob is certain to succeed.
- 6 It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
- 7 Does every politician who cheats instinctively lie?
- 8 Inferior defenses could then, as now, be tackled, as Vernon did at Porto Bello, Exmouth at Algiers, & Seymour at Alexandria.
- Glossary
- References
- Index
Summary
Demonstrates how an 8-word title consisting of 4 modifier noun pairs, each containing the same noun, can be multiply ambiguous. One ambiguity concerns the possibility of interpreting the noun as either singular or plural; a second, whether the first modifier-noun pair is interpreted as distinct from the second pair; and a third, whether the third and fourth pairs refer to the first and second pairs or not. Investigates the connection between syntax and punctuation to determine to what extent these possible interpretations can be disambiguated with sentence internal punctuation.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Adventures in English Syntax , pp. 1 - 12Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020