[Grammar] Is it ambiguous?

[luaya]

Hi friends,

When I ask in English:

"Who did Mary see walking towards the railway station?"

Is this phrase ambiguous?

Does it say that "Mary was walking towards the railway station when she saw someone (and I want to know who)", or does it mean "Mary saw someone who was walking towards the railway station (and I want to know who)", or both meanings would be possible?

 

[susiedq]

Yes, it is ambiguous. Either meaning could be used.

 

[luaya]

And do you know if there is one of the meanings that would be more immediate?

 

[susiedq]

No; (what does immediate mean? first impression? most obvious meaning? preferred meaning?)

Context would help; surrounding sentences would give a clue to the meaning.

 

[TheParser]

Hi friends,

When I ask in English:

"Who did Mary see walking towards the railway station?"

Is this phrase ambiguous?

Does it say that "Mary was walking towards the railway station when she saw someone (and I want to know who)", or does it mean "Mary saw someone who was walking towards the railway station (and I want to know who)", or both meanings would be possible?

NOT A TEACHER

(1) I believe that most books suggest:

Whom did Mary see walking toward the railroad station?

(a) I believe the "normal" order would be:

Mary did see whom walking toward the railroad station?

(i) The participial phrase seems to modify "whom."

(2) If you wanted to refer to Mary's walking, then maybe

it would be helpful to say:

Walking toward the railroad station, whom did Mary see?

That is:

Walking toward the railroad station, Mary did see whom? ("Walking ...." seems

to modify "Mary.")

(3) I do not believe that your sentence would be ambiguous

to most native speakers, but -- of course -- I cannot speak for

anyone else.

 

[Abstract Idea]

"Who did Mary see walking towards the railway station?"

Is this phrase ambiguous?

Yes, in my opinion it is ambiguous.

And do you know if there is one of the meanings that would be more immediate?

The most natural meaning here certainly is the second one, in your own words: "Mary saw someone who was walking towards the railway station (and I want to know who)." It is not so easy or immediate to grasp the other meaning at all.

In order to ensure the other meaning, you should rephrase it to:

"Whom did Mary see while walking towards the railway station?"

or, as TheParser suggested:

"[While] Walking toward the railroad station, whom did Mary see?"


Let us analyze the following:

0) Whom did Mary see walking towards the railway station?
1) Whom did Mary meet doing the dishes?
2) Whom did Mary kill studying grammar? (certainly ambiguous)
3) Whom did Mary answer writing a letter?

You see, numbers 1 and 2 above are similar to your original example. With the same structure tough, number 3 is different! In number 3 it is natural to understand that Mary herself wrote the letter.

 

[birdeen's call]

Hi friends,

When I ask in English:

"Who did Mary see walking towards the railway station?"

Is this phrase ambiguous?

Does it say that "Mary was walking towards the railway station when she saw someone (and I want to know who)", or does it mean "Mary saw someone who was walking towards the railway station (and I want to know who)", or both meanings would be possible?

Thanks for the question. I considered posting it too. I'd like to provide a simpler example:

I saw him walking on the street.

Is it ambiguous? I believe it's not but I'm not sure.

(a) I believe the "normal" order would be:

Mary did see whom walking toward the railroad station?

By "normal", do you mean correct?

 

[Abstract Idea]

I saw him walking on the street.

Is it ambiguous? I believe it's not but I'm not sure.

In my opinion this is also ambiguous. But the "degree of ambiguity" is very low, similar to the original example.

Let us consider some similar structures:

0') Mary saw him walking towards the railway station.
1') Mary met him doing the dishes.
2') Mary killed him studying grammar.
3') Mary answered him writing a letter.
4') Mary saw him walking on the street.

You see, the structure is the same. Whether it is ambiguous or not is related to the verb. There is no definite final answer.

These sentences (or similar ones) should be the object of a poll to be carefully applied to English native speakers. Depending on the situation and on the person, some of them may sound ambiguous or not. It is not enough to simply state your personal opinion whether they are ambiguous or not - you have to give it an impartial statistical treatment and then try to understand the results.

Of course many language researches have already studied this subject not just by performing such polls but with many other scientific methods as well. Welcome to the realm of linguistics!

 

[philo2009]

No, there is no real danger of ambiguity here: if Mary, rather than the object NP, were the intended referent of the participle phrase, 'walking' would, at the very least, be preceded by a comma (corresponding, naturally, to a brief pause in the spoken form), and, most likely, by a conjunction such as 'while'.

 

[Tdol]

It could be ambiguous, but I would assume it meant that Mary saw a person who was walking towards the station, and would stick when/while in like Philo to get the other meaning.

 

[Pedroski]

Maybe it should be whom, but I think a lot of people would also use who. Ambiguous yes, looks like a sentence out of a Linguistics book, written to illustrate some boring fact.

"Who did Mary see walking towards the railway station?"

1) Mary saw who (while she was) walking to the railway station? ( elided) Meaning 1

2) Mary saw who walking to the railway station? Since 'who walking to the railway station' is not a valid clause, I interpret 'walking to the railway station' as an adjective describing 'who' Meaning 2

3) Mary saw who (where) walking to the railway station? Interpret 'walking to the railway station' as an adverb of location pointed at 'saw'. This the same as 1) in effect.

 

[TheParser]

Thanks for the question. I considered posting it too. I'd like to provide a simpler example:

I saw him walking on the street.

Is it ambiguous? I believe it's not but I'm not sure.


By "normal", do you mean correct?

NOT A TEACHER

(1) By "normal," I probably meant "usual" order in English:

subject/verb/object.

(2) I think that learners can better understand certain aspects

if they rearrange words in their mind(s) according to "usual" order.

(3) "Whom do you live with?" might be better understood by

learners if they mentally change it to "You do live with whom?"

They can then better understand why "whom" is called for (object of

the preposition).

 

[birdeen's call]

Maybe it should be whom, but I think a lot of people would also use who. Ambiguous yes, looks like a sentence out of a Linguistics book, written to illustrate some boring fact.

When I was asking about ambiguity, I didn't mean anything as abstract as content of some grammar book. I understand that a syntactician is bound to say there's ambiguity here. But I'd like to have it cleared whether you'd have any doubt if someone said it in real life. From what other native speakers said I understood they would not. Would you?

 

[Pedroski]

As Philo said, there should be a marker in the sentence. If you said this, you would emphasize some words to make your meaning clear, but that wouldn't really help. The sentence is unclear, should really be rephrased, because both Mary and who could be walking. If you want to write good, clear English, rephrase.

Mary saw a UFO walking to the station.

As UFOs don't, as far as I know, walk, one assumes here that Mary is walking.