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Mon 31 Mar, 2008 04:36 am
1) Is it possible to use the present participle verb forms of relative clauses infinitely and in a string of successive participle reduction as in :
Tim scolded the child, (who was) drying his tears (which were) coming streaming (and which were) dropping from his crying eyes onto the white hanky.
2) In the sentence : "Tim scolded the child drying his tears"
i. Is Tim drying his eyes ?
ii. Is Tim drying the child's eyes ?
iii. Is the child drying his eyes ?
iv. Is the child drying Tim's eyes ?
What would your suggestions be to remove the ambiguity for each case respectively?
Yeah, could string a bunch of present particles together like that--and as writing, it would really suck. The sentence you constructed:
"Tim scolded the child drying his tears"
. . . is lame, and it is ambiguous. The way to fix that would be to write: "Time scolded the child who was drying his tears." Even then, one could allege that it was ambiguous, because it doesn't stipulate whose tears are being dried, but English speakers would "get it."
Ambiguities like that are actually rather common in English, and the occasion of a good deal of mirth.
Tim scolded the crying child, who was drying his tears with a white hanky.
Now it's fairly clear that the child is the one whose eyes need drying, and that the child is doing the drying...
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