John was thinking of me(,) cooking the soup.

[Uncanny]

Do we place a comma before 'cooking' in 'John was thinking of me cooking the soup.'?
How can it be rephrased?

1. John was thinking of me while he was cooking the soup.
2. Me cooking the soup was on John's mind for a while.

How does the prosody affect the interpretation?

 

[emsr2d2]

Do we place a comma before 'cooking' in 'John was thinking of me cooking the soup no full stop here'?

No. If you add a comma, it won't be grammatical.

How can it be rephrased?

1. John was thinking of me while he was cooking the soup.
2. An image of me cooking the soup was on John's mind. for a while.

Note my corrections and markups above.
#1 would be rephrased as "John was thinking of me, while cooking the soup".

How does the prosody affect the interpretation?

There is only one interpretation (#2).

 

[jutfrank]

This is what you're thinking:

a) John was thinking of me, cooking the soup. [John cooked the soup]
b) John was thinking of me cooking the soup. [I cooked the soup]

Sentence a) could be greatly improved by swapping the clauses:

Cooking the soup, John was thinking of me.

The effect of the comma/pause is to signify that it was John who was cooking the soup.

 

[Tarheel]

Do we place a comma before 'cooking' in 'John was thinking of me cooking the soup.'?
How can it be rephrased?

1. John was thinking of me while he was cooking the soup.

If you were the one cooking the soup then it's phrased badly. If John was cooking the soup, it's fine.

 

[Holmes]

Do we place a comma before 'cooking' in 'John was thinking of me cooking the soup.'?
How can it be rephrased?

1. John was thinking of me while he was cooking the soup.
2. Me cooking the soup was on John's mind for a while.

How does the prosody affect the interpretation?

I think both interpretations work when there is no comma after "me." The sentence is structurally ambiguous. It is context that will make the difference:

1'. John was thinking of me cooking the soup. After he finished cooking it, he had other things on his mind.
2'. John was thinking of me cooking the soup and of me putting too much salt in it.

 

[Uncanny]

There is only one interpretation (#2).

I think both interpretations work when there is no comma after "me." The sentence is structurally ambiguous.

I am a bit confused.

 

[Tarheel]

@Uncanny
In the first one John was cooking the soup. In the second one you were cooking the soup.

 

[5jj]

I think both interpretations work when there is no comma after "me." The sentence is structurally ambiguous. It is context that will make the difference:

1'. John was thinking of me cooking the soup. After he finished cooking it, he had other things on his mind.

Without the comma, that doesn't work for me.

 

[Holmes]

Without the comma, that doesn't work for me.

What if we added "while" but not the words "he was"? Would the sentence still require the comma for you?

1a) John was thinking of me while cooking the soup.

 

[emsr2d2]

What if we added "while" but not the words "he was"? Would the sentence still require the comma for you?

1a) John was thinking of me while cooking the soup.

I suggested that in post #3, albeit with a comma. I see no difference in meaning between the version with a comma and the one without.

 

[Holmes]

Below is a sentence I came across yesterday evening in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, long considered a literary masterpiece. I've been teaching it this semester.

"The little dog was sitting on the table looking with blind eyes through the smoke, and from time to time groaning faintly." (from Chapter 2)

I think it's noteworthy that there is no comma separation between "table" and "looking," even though the implied subject of "looking" is "The little dog," not "the table."