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Anonymous Posted 10 years ago
Grammar

Modify in part or the whole?

Hi. Please help. Do the underlined parts modify parts of the sentences, which are "two incidents" and "what happened two days ago" respectively, or the whole sentences? Perhaps, should we look at the contexts of the two to determine which parts they modify?

1. He talked about two incidents, which happened two days ago.
2. He talked about what happened two days ago, which wasn't nice.
  

Top answer

In (1), the underlined part must modify "two incidents". It cannot modify "He talked about two incidents". (2) is ambiguous.

— GPY

  • In (1), the underlined part must modify "two incidents".
  • It cannot modify "He talked about two incidents".
  • (2) is ambiguous.
  • Both interpretations are possible.
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3 Answers
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In (1), the underlined part must modify "two incidents". It cannot modify "He talked about two incidents".

(2) is ambiguous. Both interpretations are possible.
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Thank you.

You wrote:

In (1), the underlined part must modify "two incidents". It cannot modify "He talked about two incidents".

How could be so sure of it not modifying the whole sentence? I believe his talking about them happened two days ago is the essence of sentence 1 and the underlined part "which happened two days ago" modifies that. Please help. Thank you in adv
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Anonymous I believe his talking about them happened two days ago is the essence of sentence 1 and the underlined part "which happened two days ago" modifies that.
If that is the intention then the sentence is poorly written, and not really understandable. Unfortunately I cannot at the moment come up with a good explanation of why it doesn't work in that
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