Demonstrates how scope ambiguities involving modifiers used in coordinate structures that contain conjoined nouns correlate with different hierarchical structures that can be assigned to the same linear string of words. These different hierarchical structures, which can be clearly represented as tree diagrams, correspond to distinct interpretations, thereby showing how distinct hierarchical syntactic structures reflect a unique interpretation. This analysis is extended to layered coordinations, containing two conjunctions and three conjuncts, where one of these conjuncts is itself a coordinate structure. In these cases, one unique hierarchical structure will correspond to four distinct linear orders, where the interpretation is determined by the hierarchical structure of the construction, and not its linear order. These ambiguous constructions can be disambiguated by employing both with and and either with or.

Expands the discussion of coordinate structures started in the previous chapter to another kind to syntactic ambiguity involving a prepositional phrase in the title of the Princeton University introductory linguistics course: Introduction to Language and Linguistics. On one interpretation, the left conjunct is only Language; while on the other, it is Introduction to Language. Each interpretation corresponds to a unique hierarchical structure. To determine why one interpretation is more appropriate than the other, it is necessary to consider the meaning of the words language and linguistics, including how they relate. This leads to a basic discussion of what a language is and what language is from the perspective of modern linguistics. This chapter wraps up the analysis of coordinate structures with a discussion of the use and misuse of coordinate structures in writing. It demonstrates how coordinate structures can be a source of ambiguity, redundancy, and vagueness—all hallmarks of poor writing.