Posthumously

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Feb 19, 2008, at 7:30 AM, Barbara Need wrote:

> The following appeared in today's Almanac in the Chicago Tribune:
>
> In 1999, President Bill Clinton posthumously pardoned Henry Flipper,
> the first black graduate of West Point, whose military career was
> tarnished by a racially motivated discharge.
>
> Does anyone else get a first reading in which the pardon occurred
> after Clinton's death?

i did, and then i backtracked and worked out what much have been
intended.  the preferred readings would switch if "posthumously" came
after the direct object.  unfortunately, the direct object has a long
appositive attached to it, so that "posthumously" would have to come
after the whole thing -- grammatical but awkward.  the only way to fix
it is to re-cast the sentence, for instance by splitting it in two:

> In 1999, President Bill Clinton pardoned Henry Flipper
> posthumously.  Flipper was
> the first black graduate of West Point, whose military career was
> tarnished by a racially motivated discharge.

or by changing the earlier construction:

> In 1999, President Bill Clinton granted a posthumous pardon to Henry
> Flipper,
> the first black graduate of West Point, whose military career was
> tarnished by a racially motivated discharge.

arnold

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