Grammar

[Peter M.]

There was an actual sentence on web:
His comments followed a V. statement on Saturday attempting to clarify the meaning of the academic speech made in ...
Q: attempting refers to His comments or to a V. statement on Saturday - and why? (Or the sentence is ambiguous in itself, and therefore bad?!)
Thanks for reply!
Peter M.

[Coffa]

There was an actual sentence on web:
His comments followed a V. statement on Saturday attempting to clarify the meaning of the academic speech made in ...
Q: attempting refers to His comments or to a V. statement on Saturday - and why? (Or the sentence is ambiguous in itself, and therefore bad?!)
Thanks for reply!
Peter M.

It's not ambiguous - it refers to the statement. 'His comments' is the subject of the sentence; 'followed' is the verb; and the rest of the sentence is an object clause of the verb.

In order to achieve the meaning you suggest, the object clause must be broken with a conjunction, as in:

"His comments followed a V. statement on Saturday, and (they) were attempting to clarify the meaning..."