many/ambiguity

[navi tasan]

A-Seeing many of these people will be painful for me.

Can't this sentence mean two things:

1-If I see many of them, I will suffer.
2-There are many people here seeing each of whom will be painful for me.

I think the structure is itself capable of being used in two contexts.

B-Taking a lot of these pills will kill you.

One would assume B to mean that if you take a lot of them you will die but it could also mean:

C-A lot of these pills will kill you.
(This one seems unambiguous to me.)

 

[Tdol]

A Yes, but the second strikes me as more logical and would be my default interpretation.
B It would depend on what we're looking at- if we're standing in front of a shelf of jars, then C is logical, but if we have one jar, then the first interpretation is logical.

 

[navi tasan]

Thanks TDOL,

But is C really unambiguous. I thought it was but I am not sure any more,

 

[Raymott]

Thanks TDOL,

But is C really unambiguous. I thought it was but I am not sure any more,

Yes, the sentence is ambiguous, as Tdol implied. The context is necessary to disambiguate it.

 

[navi tasan]

Thanks Raymott,

At first I thought C was not ambiguous. I have another question here. Would you say:

a-A lot of these pills is bad for you.
or:
b-A lot of those pills are bad for you.

if the meaning is: It will be bad for you to take a lot of these pills.
I think b could only have the other meaning (ie. there are a lot of these pills that are bad for you) but perhaps a doesn't sound right.

Is this construction informal or could it be used in formal writing?

 

[Raymott]

Thanks Raymott,

At first I thought C was not ambiguous. I have another question here. Would you say:

a-A lot of these pills is bad for you.
or:
b-A lot of those pills are bad for you.

if the meaning is: It will be bad for you to take a lot of these pills.
I think b could only have the other meaning (ie. there are a lot of these pills that are bad for you) but perhaps a doesn't sound right.

Is this construction informal or could it be used in formal writing?

a. could only be defended if a certain batch or lot of pills, say Lot 45367H was defective. You could say that lot of pills is bad for you.

I think the importance of the context of "lot of pills" has been discussed.