Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeNewYork  It is, of course, possible that the intent of the original sentence was different from the meaning that was conveyed. As it is written, however, I agree with you that the clause seems to be attributive.  |
Context context context and finally, context.
I agree that we'll never know unless we can track down the speaker. If this is an isolated sentence from some grammar book/test, then we're SOL.
Don't you think that as a written example, it is less than felicitous, Mike? It sounds more like speech to me. The placement of the adverbial phrase, "about a mile out of town" sounds odd. Was the start of the dirt road or the valley 'about a mile out of town'.
I think that this could easily be viewed as speech, where the speaker has forgotten part of the description and adds it as an afterthought
We went along a dirt road that led down into a valley -- [that was] about a mile out of town, where there was a pond [which was where we went down into the valley].
I'd like to make it clear that I'm certainly not suggesting that yours and Jiang's idea is any less possible.