On your first reading, what part do you think the relative clause in red modifies?
(1) Small, frequent doses of caffeine are best for truck drivers, doctors and others who need to stay awake over a long period of time, according to a U.S. study published Tuesday.
(You can read the original text by clicking http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... affeine_dc.)
Question 1:
To be more exact, do you think if we exclude the knowledge of the world around us, (1) is syntactically ambiguous in that the relative at issue may modify either "truck drivers ...others" or just "others"?
You come across (2) when you go along.
(2) The men were scheduled to stay awake nearly 29 hours straight, simulating the amount of time some doctors, military and emergency services personnel have to up.
So, not until we are here do we realize what the author really means is (3), which I think might be stylistically better.
(3) Small, frequent doses of caffeine are best for people like some truck drivers and doctors who need to stay awake over a long period of time.
Question 2:
One other question of mine that I'd like to have your opinion about is,
do you think we can delete "some" in (3)?
Thank you in advance
Seiichi MYOGA
relative relating to what?
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Re: relative relating to what?
.Seiichi MYOGA wrote:On your first reading, what part do you think the relative clause in red modifies?
(1) Small, frequent doses of caffeine are best for truck drivers, doctors and others who need to stay awake over a long period of time, according to a U.S. study published Tuesday
truck drivers, doctors and others
Re: relative relating to what?
Apples, oranges and lemons are types of fruit.Question 1:
To be more exact, do you think if we exclude the knowledge of the world around us, (1) is syntactically ambiguous in that the relative at issue may modify either "truck drivers ...others" or just "others"?
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Seiichi MYOGA
- Posts: 64
- Joined: Thu May 06, 2004 6:13 am
Dear metal56,
I appreciate your help and comments.
Now I understand that the form "X, Y, Z and others who..." is, independently of the context, just a shortened one of "X who..., Y who..., Z who... and others who..."
Can I ask a follow-up?
Do you think stylistically, (5) is equally acceptable as (4)?
(4) This site is a wonderful resource for scholars, researchers, journalists, and [others/the like] who want background information on these cases.
(5) This site is a wonderful resource for those who want backgound information on these cases, including scholars, researchers and journalists.
Seiichi MYOGA
I appreciate your help and comments.
Now I understand that the form "X, Y, Z and others who..." is, independently of the context, just a shortened one of "X who..., Y who..., Z who... and others who..."
Can I ask a follow-up?
Do you think stylistically, (5) is equally acceptable as (4)?
(4) This site is a wonderful resource for scholars, researchers, journalists, and [others/the like] who want background information on these cases.
(5) This site is a wonderful resource for those who want backgound information on these cases, including scholars, researchers and journalists.
Seiichi MYOGA
Seiichi MYOGA[/quote]Do you think stylistically, (5) is equally acceptable as (4)?
(4) This site is a wonderful resource for scholars, researchers, journalists, and [others/the like] who want background information on these cases.
(5) This site is a wonderful resource for those who want backgound information on these cases, including scholars, researchers and journalists.
For me, yes.
Answering your original question:
This is simply a matter of punctuation.
In your original sentence the absence of a comma after "doctors" implies that they and truck drivers, as well as numbers of other people, need to stay awake for long periods.
A comma after "doctors" would disassociate doctors and truck drivers from the group of "those who need to stay awake for long periods".
Of course, the punctuation only reflects a difference in the pronunciation of these two phrases. I prefer not to go into precisely what those differences are - I simply draw attention to the fact that will be differences.
Harzer
This is simply a matter of punctuation.
In your original sentence the absence of a comma after "doctors" implies that they and truck drivers, as well as numbers of other people, need to stay awake for long periods.
A comma after "doctors" would disassociate doctors and truck drivers from the group of "those who need to stay awake for long periods".
Of course, the punctuation only reflects a difference in the pronunciation of these two phrases. I prefer not to go into precisely what those differences are - I simply draw attention to the fact that will be differences.
Harzer
Seiichi:
I think you're completely right to say that, on its own, it's ambiguous. The structure of the noun phrase can be read either as:
((truck drivers, doctors and others) who need to stay awake over a long period of time)
or
((truck drivers), (doctors) and (others who need to stay awake over a long period of time))
The only reason we would be inclined to interpret it in the first way is because our knowledge of the world tells us that not all truck drivers and doctors may need to stay awake over long periods of time. But if we assume that truck drivers and doctors are meant by the writer to be typical examples of people working long shifts, then we might prefer the second interpretation.
As for your second question, the fact that you've used a defining relative clause makes the use of "some" unnecessary, but it's still usefully redundant. Many features of natural language are redundant, but still serve a communicative function, minimizing possible misundertandings. If you had used a non-defining relative clause, the "some" would then have been necessary.
some truck drivers and doctors, who need to stay awake over a long period of time
I think you're completely right to say that, on its own, it's ambiguous. The structure of the noun phrase can be read either as:
((truck drivers, doctors and others) who need to stay awake over a long period of time)
or
((truck drivers), (doctors) and (others who need to stay awake over a long period of time))
The only reason we would be inclined to interpret it in the first way is because our knowledge of the world tells us that not all truck drivers and doctors may need to stay awake over long periods of time. But if we assume that truck drivers and doctors are meant by the writer to be typical examples of people working long shifts, then we might prefer the second interpretation.
As for your second question, the fact that you've used a defining relative clause makes the use of "some" unnecessary, but it's still usefully redundant. Many features of natural language are redundant, but still serve a communicative function, minimizing possible misundertandings. If you had used a non-defining relative clause, the "some" would then have been necessary.
some truck drivers and doctors, who need to stay awake over a long period of time