The chain of evidence led the detective to Mr. Johnson living on the second floor.

[Alexey86]

Hello! This thread is a continuation of this discussion: https://www.usingenglish.com/forum/threads/278670-What-are-the-circumstances/page3

Jutfrank argues that "The chain of evidence led the detective to Mr. Johnson living on the second floor" is a bad sentence. Here's an excerpt from his reply:

"What exactly do you want the destination to be? Mr Johnson or Mr Johnson living on the second floor? The former makes good sense because we often use a person as the destination, though if that is the intention, you ought to either end the sentence or place a comma immediately after the destination. The latter seems to intend the destination as a proposition, ('Mr Johnson lives on the second floor'), (or rather, the truth value of a proposition), which doesn't really work because we don't normally use propositions as destinations. It would be much better to rephrase the thought to include the proposition stated clearly—for example, The evidence led the detective to believe that Mr Johnson lives on the second floor or The evidence led the detective to discovering that Mr Johnson lives on the second floor, or something like that, where the destination is a state of knowledge rather than the truth value of a proposition."

To which I counter that "living on the second floor" is just additional information about Mr. Johnson in the form of a participle phrase. The destination is still the person, Mr. Johnson. We can compare it to the following example: (a) "I looked out of the window and noticed the man living on the second floor (= my neighbor who lives on the second floor)."
Another one: Suppose I'm playing a game where I have to find a hidden object based on verbal clues. I find the object under a teddy bear that is lying on a sofa and say, (b) "The clues have led me to a teddy bear lying on a sofa."

Now, let's compare these examples with the following:

(c) What were the circumstances that led to you being here?
(d) What were the circumstances that led to your being here?

While the possessive form in (d) perfectly makes sense, the possessive form in (a - b) doesn't: I can't notice "man's living on the second floor", nor can the clues lead me to "teddy bear's lying on a sofa." These variants sound senseless to me.

What do you think? Is there anything wrong with my examples and reasoning?

 

[Alexey86]

The original thread is already too long.

 

[jutfrank]

As I've said before, Alexey, your questions are very hard work. I'll do my best, however.

To which I counter that "living on the second floor" is just additional information about Mr. Johnson in the form of a participle phrase. The destination is still the person, Mr. Johnson. We can compare it to the following example: (a) "I looked out of the window and noticed the man living on the second floor (= my neighbor who lives on the second floor)."
Another one: Suppose I'm playing a game where I have to find a hidden object based on verbal clues. I find the object under a teddy bear that is lying on a sofa and say, (b) "The clues have led me to a teddy bear lying on a sofa."

I think there's an important difference between the participle phrases living on the second floor and lying on the sofa in how they relate to the head of their NPs. Let me try to simplify things in order to get at what I think the issue is here:

The clues led to a man living on the second floor. :tick:
The clues led to Mr Johnson living on the second floor. :cross:

Now, before we continue, I'd like to know if you, and more importantly, other members, will agree that the first sentence above is fine but the second is not. If we do agree, I'll try to explain why this is so.

 

[Alexey86]

Now, I think the latter should be either "Mr. Johnson, living on the second floor" (Nonrestrictive Clause) or "a (= some) Mr. Johnson living on the second floor" (Restrictive Clause). Am I right?

 

[GoesStation]

The clues led to a man living on the second floor. :tick:
The clues led to Mr Johnson living on the second floor. :cross:

Now, before we continue, I'd like to know if you, and more importantly, other members, will agree that the first sentence above is fine but the second is not. If we do agree, I'll try to explain why this is so.

I agree, and I like the direction you're heading in. The more I consider the sample sentences, the less I can hope to articulate why the first works and the second doesn't. I'm looking forward to hearing this explained.

 

[jutfrank]

Now, I think the latter should be either "Mr. Johnson, living on the second floor" (Nonrestrictive Clause) or "a (= some) Mr. Johnson living on the second floor" (Restrictive Clause). Am I right?

Essentially, yes. In fact, I really like your addition of the indefinite article there, which makes all the difference. (Let's not worry about the grammar, though, and focus on the meaning.)

(a) The clues led to Mr Johnson living on the second floor. :cross:
(b) The clues led to Mr Johnson, living on the second floor. :tick:

(a) The clues led to Mr Johnson living on the second floor. :cross:
(c) The clues led to a Mr Johnson living on the second floor. :tick:

Again, before we continue, I'd like to know if any member disagrees with the judgement above, with particular respect to (c). GoesStation?

 

[Tarheel]

This is hard to follow.
:-(

 

[GoesStation]

(a) The clues led to Mr Johnson living on the second floor. :cross:
(b) The clues led to Mr Johnson, living on the second floor. :tick:

(a) The clues led to Mr Johnson living on the second floor. :cross:
(c) The clues led to a Mr Johnson living on the second floor. :tick:

Again, before we continue, I'd like to know if any member disagrees with the judgement above, with particular respect to (c). GoesStation?

C remains ambiguous to me. I wouldn't write it, and I'd change it if it turned up in something I was editing. I can still hear the sentence suggesting it was the clues that caused Mr. Johnson to live there. B works fine.

 

[jutfrank]

I can still hear the sentence suggesting it was the clues that caused Mr. Johnson to live there.

Yes, I see what you mean. But one thing—would that not be the case for (a) too?

 

[GoesStation]

Yes, I see what you mean. But one thing—would that not be the case for (a) too?

Yes, but that one is clearly marked as wrong. What bugs me is why I didn't initially see ambiguity in this one: The clues led to a man living on the second floor. It looks fuzzier now, but I'd still be more likely to accept it than the version that names the man.

 

[Alexey86]

What bugs me is why I didn't initially see ambiguity in this one: The clues led to a man living on the second floor.

Thank you, GS! Now that you've pointed that out, I see ambiguity too. The thing is, if translated into Russian, the bolded part would mean "who lives on the second floor" with 99.9 percent probability. I mean the second reading doesn't make sense to me.

 

[GoesStation]

The thing is, if translated into Russian, the bolded part would mean "who lives on the second floor" with 99.9 percent probability. I mean the second reading doesn't make sense to me.

I thought that in Russian, inflections would make any ambiguity impossible there.

 

[Alexey86]

I thought that in Russian, inflections would make any ambiguity impossible there.

Definitely! Of course, the sentence can be worded in Russian to convey the meaning of cause. But this reading as such is illogical to me in terms of common sense.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Hello! This thread is a continuation of this discussion: https://www.usingenglish.com/forum/threads/278670-What-are-the-circumstances/page3

Jutfrank argues that "The chain of evidence led the detective to Mr. Johnson living on the second floor" is a bad sentence. . . .

It is bad. It makes no sense. These would:

The chain of evidence led the detective to Mr. Johnson, living on the second floor.
The chain of evidence led the detective to discover that Mr. Johnson lived on the second floor.
The chain of evidence led the detective to Mr. Johnson, who lived on the second floor.
The chain of evidence led the detective to believe that Mr. Johnson lived on the second floor.
The chain of evidence led the detective to Mr. Johnson, on the second floor.

 

[Luckysquirty]

The original thread is already too long.

All the evidence led the detective to Mr. Johnson on the second floor.

Not a teacher.

 

[Rover_KE]

Luckysquirty, please read this extract from the forum's Posting Guidelines:

You are welcome to answer questions posted in the Ask a Teacher forum as long as your suggestions, help, and advice reflect a good understanding of the English language. If you are not a teacher, you will need to state that clearly in your post. Please note, all posts are moderated by our in-house language experts, so make sure your suggestions, help, and advice provide the kind of information an international language teacher would offer. If not, and your posts do not contribute to the topic in a positive way, they will be subject to deletion.

 

[Alexey86]

Jutfrank, you also argue, if I understand your point correctly, that the constructions "something led to someone being/doing something" and "something led to someone's being/doing something" mean the same. This is certainly true for this pair:

What were the circumstances that led to you being here?
What were the circumstances that led to your being here?

Both sentences have the cause-and-effect meaning. But I can't see how it can be true for this:

The clues led to a teddy bear lying on a sofa.
The clues led to a teddy bear's lying on a sofa.

The "led to" part adds ambiguity: it may seem that the clues act as a cause. But given the context, this reading just doesn't make sense. Only the destination reading does. Therefore, the possessive form doesn't work here, and the structures I mentioned above are not always interchangeable. What do you think?

 

[jutfrank]

These threads have gotten so long I can't remember everything we've already said.

I don't quite understand your point about about ambiguity, or which sentence you're saying doesn't make sense.

I don't like the possessive versions of either of those pairs, but for different reasons. Note that these pairs are not comparable since the nature of the -ing phrases is different. In the first sentence of the teddy bear example, the lying on the sofa bit is not essential—you can remove it with no major loss of meaning. In the first sentence of the first pair, it is, and you can't. That's why the second sentence of the second pair is wrong.

 

[Alexey86]

I don't quite understand your point about about ambiguity

I mean the ambiguity GS mentioned in #9 and #11. It's the "led to" part that evokes it.

the lying on the sofa bit is not essential—you can remove it with no major loss of meaning. In the first sentence of the first pair, it is, and you can't. That's why the second sentence of the second pair is wrong.

That's what I wanted to know. Thank you!