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Breez Posted 21 years ago
Grammar
Two Questions on Parallelism and Ambiguous Pronouns
To keep this sentence parallel in structure, should it be:
The boy likes to play basketball, eat expensive caviar, and dance.
or
The boy like to play basketball, to eat expensive caviar, and to dance.
My second question: Is the following sentence a case of the ambiguous pronoun?
The police officers shot the criminals, and three were killed.
The sentence seems like an ambiguous pronoun. My reasoning is because three can refer to officers and criminals. However, I am not absolutely sure on this.
Help/advice is much appreciated.
The boy likes to play basketball, eat expensive caviar, and dance.
or
The boy like to play basketball, to eat expensive caviar, and to dance.
My second question: Is the following sentence a case of the ambiguous pronoun?
The police officers shot the criminals, and three were killed.
The sentence seems like an ambiguous pronoun. My reasoning is because three can refer to officers and criminals. However, I am not absolutely sure on this.
Help/advice is much appreciated.
Top answer
The sentence is in parallel structure both ways. An example of unparalleled stucture here would be: The boy likes playing basketball, to eat expensive caviar, and dance. In the second question, 'three' is indeed ambiguous.
- The sentence is in parallel structure both ways.
- An example of unparalleled stucture here would be: The boy likes playing basketball, to eat expensive caviar, and dance.
- In the second question, 'three' is indeed ambiguous.
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7 Answers
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The sentence is in parallel structure both ways.
An example of unparalleled stucture here would be: The boy likes playing basketball, to eat expensive caviar, and dance.
In the second question, 'three' is indeed ambiguous.
An example of unparalleled stucture here would be: The boy likes playing basketball, to eat expensive caviar, and dance.
In the second question, 'three' is indeed ambiguous.
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Thanks. So little things like to, and the are optionally included in the list of items within parallel structure?
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Style would certainly come into play, and emphasis, too. The option can be abused.
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My second question: Is the following sentence a case of the ambiguous pronoun?
The police officers shot the criminals, and three were killed.
I agree that "three" is ambiguous here - but is it a pronoun??
The police officers shot the criminals, and three were killed.
I agree that "three" is ambiguous here - but is it a pronoun??
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The police officers shot the criminals, and three were killed.
This only strikes me as ambiguous if you think about it too much. I certainly don't think it would come across as ambiguous in speech. The fact that it was the police officers who were doing the shooting more or less leads you to think (or at any rate assume) that it must be three of the criminals
This only strikes me as ambiguous if you think about it too much. I certainly don't think it would come across as ambiguous in speech. The fact that it was the police officers who were doing the shooting more or less leads you to think (or at any rate assume) that it must be three of the criminals
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In retrospect, I think you, Forbes. thought about it more than I did...and came up with the better opinion. Because there's no context other than this single sentence, there's no choice other than police or criminals. And there's no question who got shot. For the 'three' to suffer an indefinite reference here, the sentence would have had to be amended, at the very least, as,
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