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The position "of" here may lead to ambiguity

 
 
Reply Sun 2 Jun, 2013 03:18 am

In the context below, " We hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and of all Japanese Armed Forces and all Armed Forces under Japanese control wherever situated" obviously means "We ( of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and of all Japanese Armed Forces and all Armed Forces under Japanese control wherever situated) hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers."

But the position of the "of" here may cause us to think the Allied Powers is the Allied Powers of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and of all Japanese Armed Forces and all Armed Forces under Japanese control wherever situated.


Context:

We, acting by command of and on behalf of the Emperor of Japan, the Japanese Government and the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters, hereby accept the provisions in the declaration issued by the heads of the Governments of the United States, China, and Great Britain 26 July 1945 at Potsdam, and subsequently adhered to by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which four powers are hereafter referred to as the Allied Powers.

We hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and of all Japanese Armed Forces and all Armed Forces under Japanese control wherever situated.

We hereby command all Japanese forces wherever situated and the Japanese people to cease hostilities forthwith, to preserve and save from damage all ships, aircraft, and military and civil property, and to comply
with all requirements which may be imposed by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers or by agencies of the Japanese Government at his
direction.

We hereby command the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters to
issue at once orders to the commanders of all Japanese forces and all
forces under Japanese control wherever situated to surrender
unconditionally themselves and all forces under their control.

We hereby command all civil, military, and naval officials to obey and
enforce all proclamations, orders, and directives deemed by the Supreme
Commander for the Allied Powers to be proper to effectuate this surrender
and issued by him or under his authority; and we direct all such officials to
remain at their posts and to continue to perform their non-combatant
duties unless specifically relieved by him or under his authority.

We hereby undertake for the Emperor, the Japanese Government, and
their successors to carry out the provisions of the Potsdam Declaration in
good faith, and to issue whatever orders and take whatever action may be
required by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers or by any other
designated representative of the Allied Powers for the purpose of giving
effect to that declaration.

We hereby command the Japanese Imperial Government and the
Japanese Imperial General Headquarters at once to liberate all Allied
Prisoners of War and civilian internees now under Japanese control and to
provide for their protection, care, maintenance, and immediate
transportation to places as directed.

The authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the
State shall be subject to the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers,
who will take such steps as he deems proper to effectuate these terms of
surrender.

Signed at TOKYO BAY, JAPAN at 09.04 on the SECOND day of SEPTEMBER, 1945

Mamoru Shigemitsu (重光葵)
By Command and in behalf of the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese Government

Yoshijirō Umezu (梅津美治郎)
By Command and in behalf of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters

Accepted at TOKYO BAY, JAPAN at 09.08 on the SECOND day of SEPTEMBER, 1945, for the United States, Republic of China, United
Kingdom and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and in the interests
of the other United Nations at war with Japan.

Douglas MacArthur
Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers

C.W. Nimitz
United States Representative

Hsu Yung-Ch'ang (徐永昌)
Republic of China Representative

Bruce Fraser
United Kingdom Representative

Kuzma Derevyanko
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Representative

Thomas Blamey
Commonwealth of Australia Representative

Lawrence Moore Cosgrave
Dominion of Canada Representative

Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque
Provisional Government of the French Republic Representative

C.E.L. Helfrich
Kingdom of the Netherlands Representative

Leonard M. Isitt
Dominion of New Zealand Representative
 
View best answer, chosen by oristarA
Setanta
 
  2  
Reply Sun 2 Jun, 2013 03:21 am
You're over-analyzing this. The phrase "unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers" dismisses your objection.
oristarA
 
  1  
Reply Sun 2 Jun, 2013 03:48 am
@Setanta,
Setanta wrote:

You're over-analyzing this. The phrase "unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers" dismisses your objection.


At least the structure didn't make things clear enough.
You stick to the meanign of the first paragraph and get the right answer; but when you focus on the second, you may be slightly misguided.
0 Replies
 
oristarA
 
  1  
Reply Sun 2 Jun, 2013 03:51 am
@Setanta,
Setanta wrote:

You're over-analyzing this. The phrase "unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers" dismisses your objection.

Whose Allied Powers? Well, the first Power is the Emporer, the second the Japanese government blah blah blah... Written in this way can in some way save the face of "We."
Setanta
 
  2  
Reply Sun 2 Jun, 2013 05:03 am
The structure makes things perfectly clear. That you personally have an objection to the term Allied Powers means nothing. If someone or something surrenders, then it is necessary to state that it is the surrender of something or someone. The use of "of" in that sentence is not ambiguous.
contrex
 
  2  
Reply Sun 2 Jun, 2013 05:32 am
Condensed: The surrender [to the Allies] of Japan. No confusion or ambiguity. The surrender to the police of the criminals. The surrender to the father of the naughty boy.

contrex
 
  2  
Reply Sun 2 Jun, 2013 05:37 am
@oristarA,
oristarA wrote:
Whose Allied Powers?


Study some Second World War history. On one side the Allied Powers: Britain, USA, etc, often referred to as "the Allies" (capital A). On the other side the Axis Powers: Germany, Italy until 13.10.1943, Japan and their allies (small a).

0 Replies
 
oristarA
 
  1  
Reply Sun 2 Jun, 2013 06:37 am
@contrex,
contrex wrote:

Condensed: The surrender [to the Allies] of Japan. No confusion or ambiguity. The surrender to the police of the criminals. The surrender to the father of the naughty boy.



Here we see "the Allies of Japan" Wink .
The surrender to "the Allies of Japan"
Whose surrender, may I ask?
The man who must not be named.
What? Voldermort? The dark lord?

Well, well. No kidding here. Can we use another structure to express the meaning that the sentence "The surrender [to the Allies] of Japan" conveys, Contrex?
oristarA
 
  1  
Reply Sun 2 Jun, 2013 06:40 am
@Setanta,
Setanta wrote:

The structure makes things perfectly clear. That you personally have an objection to the term Allied Powers means nothing. If someone or something surrenders, then it is necessary to state that it is the surrender of something or someone. The use of "of" in that sentence is not ambiguous.


Well, that's clear. But can we use another structure to express the same meaning unambiguously?
Setanta
 
  2  
Reply Sun 2 Jun, 2013 06:53 am
@oristarA,
It's not ambiguous.
0 Replies
 
contrex
  Selected Answer
 
  3  
Reply Sun 2 Jun, 2013 06:58 am
@oristarA,
oristarA wrote:
The surrender to "the Allies of Japan" Whose surrender, may I ask?


Your incomprehension has caused to erroneously quote the wrong part of the sentence.

It is Japan's surrender that is being formally arranged. The surrender, to the Allies, of Japan. The surrender (to the Allies) of Japan. The surrender - to the Allies - of Japan.

Quote:
Can we use another structure to express the meaning that the sentence "The surrender [to the Allies] of Japan" conveys?


The surrender of Japan to the Allies, I guess. Sarcasm ill becomes you when the incomprehension is yours alone. There is no ambiguity perceived by native speakers because the form "the surrender to entity1 of entity2" is understood to mean "the surrender by entity2 to entity1"

(B) Anyone who has studied World War 2 in even the most cursory fashion knows who "the Allies" were, and which side Japan was on, and what happened in 1945.

The second world war was fought between "the Allied Powers" and the "Axis Powers", as I have already explained. In the context of World War 2, the phrase "The Allies" or "the Allied Powers" is understood to include: France, Poland, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa, the Soviet Union, the United States of America, China, Belgium, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, Ethiopia, Greece, India, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway and Yugoslavia. The major Axis powers were Germany, Italy until 1943, and Japan. The words Allies and Axis are spelled with initial capital As.
MontereyJack
 
  2  
Reply Sun 2 Jun, 2013 07:30 am
Notice in the first paragraph where it says "These four powers are hereafter referred to as the Allied Powers". This is a legal document, in which, for brevity's sake, the contending parties are given names by which they are referred to afterwards. Here the USA, UK, USSR, and whoever #4 was are defined as "the Allied Powers" and are referred to as that thru the rest of the document, which disambiguates them from the Allies of Japan or any other grouping of Japanese interests. So it's not ambiguous.
MontereyJack
 
  1  
Reply Sun 2 Jun, 2013 07:38 am
Ah, went back and checked and #4 was China.
0 Replies
 
contrex
 
  1  
Reply Sun 2 Jun, 2013 07:39 am
@MontereyJack,
MontereyJack wrote:
Here the USA, UK, USSR, and whoever #4 was are defined as "the Allied Powers" and are referred to as that thru the rest of the document, which disambiguates them from the Allies of Japan


You appear to have overlooked that the word 'Allied' in 'Allied Powers' starts with a capital A and the word 'allies' used in its ordinary sense does not, thus providing even more disambiguation.
0 Replies
 
oristarA
 
  0  
Reply Sun 2 Jun, 2013 07:55 am
@contrex,
No incomprehension here.
I got it at the very beginning.
I have had to win you over because Satanta criticized me as "overanalysing."
Now you've joined the rank of overanalysing.
Thanks for that.
0 Replies
 
oristarA
 
  1  
Reply Sun 2 Jun, 2013 09:41 pm

Well guys, here I encounter another "of" that confuses me:

Quote:
Unsubstantiated reports of cannibalism disproportionately relate cases of cannibalism among cultures that are already otherwise despised, feared, or are little known. In antiquity, Greek reports of anthropophagy were related to distant, non-Hellenic barbarians, or else relegated in myth to the 'primitive' chthonic world that preceded the coming of the Olympian gods: see the explicit rejection of human sacrifice in the cannibal feast prepared for the Olympians by Tantalus of his son Pelops.
More:
http://www.crystalinks.com/cannibalism.html


Tantalus, (Greek mythology) a wicked king and son of Zeus; What does "of his son Pelops" refer to here?
InfraBlue
 
  2  
Reply Sun 2 Jun, 2013 09:58 pm
Quote:
We hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers of the Japanese. . .


Would it be clearer had it been written thus: "We hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender of the Japanese. . .to the Allied Powers"?
InfraBlue
 
  2  
Reply Sun 2 Jun, 2013 10:00 pm
@oristarA,
"Of his son Pelops" refers to the cannibal feast. Pelops was to be prepared as food.
oristarA
 
  0  
Reply Sun 2 Jun, 2013 10:21 pm
@InfraBlue,
InfraBlue wrote:

Quote:
We hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers of the Japanese. . .


Would it be clearer had it been written thus: "We hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender of the Japanese. . .to the Allied Powers"?


It would be a catastrophe of language to Japanese people, while that nonintuitive expression might give them comfort: we surrender to ourselves.
0 Replies
 
oristarA
 
  1  
Reply Sun 2 Jun, 2013 10:21 pm
@InfraBlue,
InfraBlue wrote:

"Of his son Pelops" refers to the cannibal feast. Pelops was to be prepared as food.


Excellent!
0 Replies
 
 

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