Series of nouns being modified by an adjective

Question

Looking for some source or citation for which nouns in the series are modified by the following adjective:

...if a Giant, Wizard, or spell you controlled...

Must you control the giant, control the wizard, or control the spell, or may any player control the Giant or the Wizard? If they meant for the effect to apply only to your Giants or Wizards, they ought have written:

...if you controlled a Giant, Wizard, or spell...

Just looking for a source here, anything more than word-of-mouth. Here is a similar question.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

cat hat 72Just looking for a source here, anything more than word-of-mouth.

The problem with that is that there is no such thing as an authoritative source. There are respected writers, grammarians and philologists, and if you're lucky you will run across their comments on your issue, but it is still only their opinion. Also the exact context often changes everything. It's like asking a lawyer a question. He'll answer, "It depends."

What you have in this forum is a collection of some of the sharpest commentators on English that I have encountered. They watch each other like hawks and debate the fine points when necessary. You will get the closest thing to a definitive answer in here, and it will be specific. For what it is worth, here is my answer:

cat hat 72...if a Giant, Wizard, or spell you controlled...Must you control the giant, control the wizard, or control the spell, or may any player control the Giant or the Wizard?

It is ambiguous. You can distribute "you controlled" along the list or not as you choose (but the natural reading distributes it). If this is meant to be part of the rules of some game, the writer made a mistake putting it that way.

cat hat 72If they meant for the effect to apply only to your Giants or Wizards, they ought have written:...if you controlled a Giant, Wizard, or spell...

That removes the ambiguity of the original, but it changes the meaning. There are other ways, for example, "If a Giant you controlled, a Wizard you controlled, or a spell you controlled ….". Clarity comes first, especially in rules.

CalifJim · Answer

cat hat 72Looking for some source or citation for which nouns in the series are modified by the following adjective

Not to rain on your parade, but I've never seen such a citation, and I don't think you're going to find one. This is a source of ambiguity inherent in English that has to be dealt with on a case by case basis.

CJ

Series of nouns being modified by an adjective

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