Teacher Discussion Forums

A student asked me the following...

a)They ruled the country using a policy called apartheid.
b)They photographed animals wandering around.

She understood that in sentence a) that "using" referred to "they", but in sentence b) was unclear as to whether "wandering" referred to "they" or "animals. I told her that in b) it meant the animals were wandering. She pointed out that the sentence pattern was the same and asked me why the difference. Can anyone help me please?

(b) is possibly ambiguous.

But I think that if the "wandering around" was being done by they, the sentence would be made to read "they photographed animals while wandering around.

In spoken English different intonation patterns will remove the ambiguity, without any need for as change of wording.

If the voice drops off after after the "a-" of "animals" and the rest of the sentence is spoken in this low tone then "wandering around" refers to the animals.

If the voice holds a mid-level tone through the word " animals" and then rises slowly to the "arou-" of "around" and only drops off sharply on the final syllable "-nd" then it is understood that the wandering around is done by those photographing.

Harzer

Hmm, tough one. It's hard to find much at all on this in grammar books, and if you do find anything, it is likely to be more about semantics (e.g. "(F)or many main clauses with two or more noun phrases, there is usually only one noun phrase that qualifies semantically as the subject of the participle clause" - The Grammar Book, Second edition, page 503) than offering any firm rules.

I'd just like to say that the sentences are not entirely identical:

a)They ruled (THE country) using/WITH a policy called apartheid.
? They ruled the country (that was) using a policy called apartheid.

b)They photographed (THE) animals (that were) wandering around (them).

To avoid any possible ambiguity, additions or re-ordering can be made (though stylistically, these suck, as they repeat "around"):

-harzer's sentence (note WITHOUT an ambiguous "they wandered" after the "while", so it all coheres nicely as a single unit)
-They wandered (around), photographing the animals around them.
-Wandering (around), they photographed the animals around them.

The core idea is basically, "They photographed the animals around them", and there is no need to mention the instrument ("using a camera"). (There is also no need to mention apartheid specifically, in sentence a), but it does add some useful extra historical information).

I suppose that Howard Jackson says kind of the same thing that I am trying to say (or rather, show) here in his Grammar and Meaning (page 194):

>>>She watched him eating for a moment.

(T)he -ing-clause ('him eating') functions as Object of the perception verb watch. Note that the Temporal Adjunct 'for a moment' is dependent on watch, not on eat: it is an element of the sentence, not of the -ing-clause.<<< (My emphasis, in bold)

I have basically taken the "around" and made it more obviously an element of the sentence before the "wandering" confuses things. That being said, the participle does add an action and therefore a certain colour that might therefore still need or want expressing, so it will be necessary to become familiar with it; students who meet it will hopefully build up a tolerance for ambiguity and come to process the sentences more as native speakers do, without the need for "fully" understanding or unravelling every last nuance.

ACTUALLY, come to think of it, forget all the above if you like, because you could achieve as much if not more simply by adding a comma to your two original sentences (and I did so, subconsciously, above):

a)They ruled the country, using a policy called apartheid.
b)They photographed animals, wandering around.

If you then changed the order of the elements, things would become even clearer:

a)Using a policy called apartheid, they ruled the country.
b)Wandering around, they photographed animals.

Hope this is interesting, even if it isn't really ultimately all that clear or helpful.

b) is not ambiguous - the participle rightly refers back to the nearest appropriate noun.

In a) country is not an appropriate noun for 'using' so it refers back to 'they'.

Take the sentence They invaded the country heading straight for anarchy and mayhem
and despite American experience in Iraq 'heading' would clearly be seen to refer to country. Put in a comma and the phrase would then refer to the subject.

The fact that English as a language has few inflections means that it is much harder to interpret structure on a purely formal basis.

It isn't particularly surprising that any English sentence, taken by itself out of meaningful context, could be ambiguous. Happens all the time. Take this additional example:

It's cold in here.

Does this mean: (1) Turn on the heat, please. I'm freezing., or, (2) Thank goodness... it's stifling hot outside. ???

It could mean either. Most likely, context would make the statement clear. The original example sentences may also be made clear by the context in which they appear. If not, then a reasonable response from an interlocutor would be, "I don't quite understand. Did you mean...?"

This, too, happens all the time.

Larry Latham

Oops. My attempts to avoid the possible ambiguity of sentence b) seem to have changed its meaning (it's now the photographers who are wandering around, and not the animals! Pesky humans!! Gotta be the stars always...). Ah well...

Anyway, SJ is right about b) not really being ambiguous - at least not to native speakers. I just thought, however, that it didn't sound quite "complete" as it stood, almost as if it were an invented sentence, made up to pose a potential problem/puzzle to amateurs like me. My above workings were more musings to myself than a concise answer, which Stephen thankfully supplied.

Stephen-sensei, can I ask you a question?

Is "They photographed animals, wandering around" at all ambiguous to you regarding subject?

Not trying to trick you or anything, just curious and trying to learn from my mistakes, in an effort to "nail" this area in my mind. You obviously know more about it than most of us! ("Sensei ni...<<rei!>>" [All bow]).

Is "They photographed animals, wandering around" at all ambiguous to you regarding subject?

Not in the least; it's obvious both the photographers and the animals were wandering around

I tnink that the 'wandering around' would hace to refer to 'they' since it has been deliberately distanced by the comma from animals.

Thanks for clearing that up, Sensei!

Stephen Jones wrote:Not in the least; it's obvious both the photographers and the animals were wandering around

Heh heh heh, funnyyy!

Thanks very much guys, am now feeling slightly mollified. I did explain that context helps clarify ambiguity....and also said that I intuitively understood the subject of wandering to be the animals in sentence b), which I guess equates to Duncan's "building up a tolerance for amiguity". I have however deduced a new rule for myself. I am going to trade my camera for a rifle and eliminate all wandering nouns from future sentences

I just tried out the original sentence b) on a Chinese friend ("Who is doing the wandering, 'They' or '(the) animals'?"), and he thought it was "They".

Oh I also noticed that I made the smiley in the quote I took from SJ's post happier than it originally was. Compromizing academic standards, all this misquoting, what! It seems emoticons don't copy and paste (I did that rather than use the "Quote" function). I could change it but my posts have "edited" over them enough.

Duncan Powrie wrote:Hmm, tough one. It's hard to find much at all on this in grammar books, and if you do find anything, it is likely to be more about semantics (e.g. "(F)or many main clauses with two or more noun phrases, there is usually only one noun phrase that qualifies semantically as the subject of the participle clause" - The Grammar Book, Second edition, page 503) than offering any firm rules.

I'd just like to say that the sentences are not entirely identical:

a)They ruled (THE country) using/WITH a policy called apartheid.
? They ruled the country (that was) using a policy called apartheid.

b)They photographed (THE) animals (that were) wandering around (them).

To avoid any possible ambiguity, additions or re-ordering can be made (though stylistically, these suck, as they repeat "around"):

-harzer's sentence (note WITHOUT an ambiguous "they wandered" after the "while", so it all coheres nicely as a single unit)
-They wandered (around), photographing the animals around them.
-Wandering (around), they photographed the animals around them.

The core idea is basically, "They photographed the animals around them", and there is no need to mention the instrument ("using a camera"). (There is also no need to mention apartheid specifically, in sentence a), but it does add some useful extra historical information).

I suppose that Howard Jackson says kind of the same thing that I am trying to say (or rather, show) here in his Grammar and Meaning (page 194):

>>>She watched him eating for a moment.

(T)he -ing-clause ('him eating') functions as Object of the perception verb watch. Note that the Temporal Adjunct 'for a moment' is dependent on watch, not on eat: it is an element of the sentence, not of the -ing-clause.<<< (My emphasis, in bold)

I have basically taken the "around" and made it more obviously an element of the sentence before the "wandering" confuses things. That being said, the participle does add an action and therefore a certain colour that might therefore still need or want expressing, so it will be necessary to become familiar with it; students who meet it will hopefully build up a tolerance for ambiguity and come to process the sentences more as native speakers do, without the need for "fully" understanding or unravelling every last nuance.

ACTUALLY, come to think of it, forget all the above if you like, because you could achieve as much if not more simply by adding a comma to your two original sentences (and I did so, subconsciously, above):

a)They ruled the country, using a policy called apartheid.
b)They photographed animals, wandering around.

If you then changed the order of the elements, things would become even clearer:

a)Using a policy called apartheid, they ruled the country.
b)Wandering around, they photographed animals.

Hope this is interesting, even if it isn't really ultimately all that clear or helpful.

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We could keep the original structure if we insert the unambiguous by means of in place of using/with:
They ruled the country by means of a policy called apartheid.

Wow - you quoted my whole post! (What, did you think I was going to say, "Wow, you thought of something that I also had, but which I decided in the end not to include"?! ). Gotta leave something for you guys to pick up on and run with/drop/kick around etc!