an adventure in ambiguity withone fish two fish
Robert Freidin · Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2020
Demonstrates how an 8-word title consisting of 4 modifier noun pairs, each containing the same noun, can be multiply ambiguous. One ambiguity concerns the possibility of interpreting the noun as either singular or plural; a second, whether the first modifier-noun pair is interpreted as distinct from the second pair; and a third, whether the third and fourth pairs refer to the first and second pairs or not. Investigates the connection between syntax and punctuation to determine to what extent these possible interpretations can be disambiguated with sentence internal punctuation.