PSAT Glitch

[Peter A. McGraw]

--On Wednesday, May 21, 2003 2:08 PM -0400 Laurence Horn
<laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:

> 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

I find it ambiguous in more than just principle, and not at all
straightforward.  The two "their"s invite the reader to assume (apparently
wrongly) a parallel construction.  I actually had to back up and re-read
the sentence, and figure that if the writer had meant to refer to the
politicians' fantasies and fears, he SHOULD have said "their OWN fantasies
and fears" to make that clear.  But  even if politicians can't "have"
citizens, I don't see why they can't have fantasies and fears.

Peter Mc.

*****************************************************************
Peter A. McGraw       Linfield College        McMinnville, Oregon
******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************