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Catttt Posted 10 years ago
Vocabulary
caught through trees
1. Does "formal columns" mean "vertical slices or frames"?
2. Does "caught through trees" refer to "stained glass windows or formal columns" or "evening sunlight"? It is a major problem that I encounter every so often. When a few sentences come after each other like A, B, C it becomes difficult to decide if sentence C is referring to sentence A or sentence B. Is it a matter of grammar or context?
Context:
Looming out of the darkness the paintings are stained glass windows or formal columns from some ceremony back-lit by fire or evening sunlight caught through trees.
2. Does "caught through trees" refer to "stained glass windows or formal columns" or "evening sunlight"? It is a major problem that I encounter every so often. When a few sentences come after each other like A, B, C it becomes difficult to decide if sentence C is referring to sentence A or sentence B. Is it a matter of grammar or context?
Context:
Looming out of the darkness the paintings are stained glass windows or formal columns from some ceremony back-lit by fire or evening sunlight caught through trees.
Top answer
1. "Formal columns" = with an upright feel (columns), placed in a calculated unrelaxed way (formal). 2.
- 1.
- "Formal columns" = with an upright feel (columns), placed in a calculated unrelaxed way (formal).
- 2.
- The comparison here is columns back-lit by fire / trees back-lit by sunlight, so it's the trees that the sunlight is going through.
- Grammatically it's ambiguous, although the "caught by trees" is (through proximity and the separation of 'or') slightly more attracted to "evening sunlight".
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5 Answers
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1. "Formal columns" = with an upright feel (columns), placed in a calculated unrelaxed way (formal).
2. The comparison here is columns back-lit by fire / trees back-lit by sunlight, so it's the trees that the sunlight is going through. Grammatically it's ambiguous, although the "caught by trees" is (through proximity and the separation of 'or') slightly more attracted to "evening sunlight".
2. The comparison here is columns back-lit by fire / trees back-lit by sunlight, so it's the trees that the sunlight is going through. Grammatically it's ambiguous, although the "caught by trees" is (through proximity and the separation of 'or') slightly more attracted to "evening sunlight".
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I should add that when read aloud it would not be ambiguous since the voice would group the phrases in a clear way.
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@meteorquake Do "columns" here mean "vertical slices of a landscape" (something like vertical blinds)? And do not they have anything to do with architectural pillars?
the context is talking about a dark gallery salon in which a number of lit vertical paintings are presented.
the context is talking about a dark gallery salon in which a number of lit vertical paintings are presented.
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