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Fire1 Posted 6 years ago
Grammar

Ambiguous sentence

?I met him sitting on the chair.

Can this sentence mean either 1 or 2 below?

1. I met him while I was sitting on the chair.

2. I met him while he was sitting on the chair.


If I want the sentence to mean only 1, should I add a comma as below? or could the below sentence still sound ambiguous ?

I met him, sitting on the chair.

  

Top answer

fire1 Ambiguous sentence Yes, that sentence is certainly ambiguous, and I'm sorry to say that there is no way to fix it, especially not by adding punctuation, which might even confuse matters further. That's why no native speaker would say it or write it. It's too unnatural and confusing.

  • fire1 Ambiguous sentence Yes, that sentence is certainly ambiguous, and I'm sorry to say that there is no way to fix it, especially not by adding punctuation, which might even confuse matters further.
  • That's why no native speaker would say it or write it.
  • It's too unnatural and confusing.
  • CJ
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2 Answers
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fire1 Ambiguous sentence

Yes, that sentence is certainly ambiguous, and I'm sorry to say that there is no way to fix it, especially not by adding punctuation, which might even confuse matters further.

That's why no native speaker would say it or write it. It's too unnatural and confusing.

CJ

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What if OP said: "setting on the chair, I met him", wouldn't only mean the first case?

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