PSAT Glitch

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:38 AM -0700 5/21/03, Peter A. McGraw wrote:
>--On Wednesday, May 21, 2003 9:17 AM -0700 Arnold Zwicky
><zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU> wrote:
>
>>today's NYT examples:
>>
>>1.  first, three examples from the editorial page, all involving
>>a *possessive* pronoun with a possessive NP antecedent - ok for some
>>of the handbooks, not for a few of them:
>>
>>  5/21/03, letter from Jacob Hartog:
>>"... even in difficult times, politicians can rely on their
>>citizens' common sense as well as their fantasies and fears."
>
>I find this one truly ambiguous, since "their" could refer to either the
>politicians or the citizens.  Even if the "rule" under discussion existed
>in my internal grammar, the ambiguity would still exist, since "their" is
>possessive.  (Or would the alleged rule allow a possessive pronoun to refer
>ONLY to a possessive NP?)
>
It's ambiguous in principle, but relatively straightforward in
context (like Arnold's scope-of-ONLY cases).  This can only be
intended to refer to the policitians relying on their citizens'
[better: constituents'; politicians don't "have" citizens] fantasies
and fears, not their own.

Larry