reversed "blame"

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Aug 27, 2011, at 1:39 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

>
> Why all the fuss about this particular headline?  I read "Obama
> blames Congress Republicans on bus tour" as "Obama blames
> Congressional Republicans on bus tour", with at worst a poorly placed
> "on bus tour" -- "Obama, on bus tour, blames Congressional
> Republicans."

yes, yes, that's the point for the posting to come -- on the intended structure, with high attachment.  but the sentence as written invites (the preposterous) low attachment, yielding a potential ambiguity that involves the argument structure of "blame".

so i used that to lead into a discussion of the various argument structures for "blame". the original sentence was just an entry point into the larger discussion.

>  The "Obama blames Congress Republicans" seems
> analogous to the use in headlines of a place-name noun instead of an
> adjective in cases like "Turkey army invades Persia" vs. "Turkish
> army invades Persia".

i was simply assuming this in my posting, treating the "Congress Republicans" variant as irrelevant to the point i was talking about.

arnold

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