Timeline for The structure of "From A to B, to C, and to D?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
9 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 29, 2023 at 22:57 | comment | added | James K | What? this is a surprise? Every natural language is riddled with ambiguity. English has both sematic ambiguity (where a single word can have multiple meanings) and syntactic ambiguity (where a sentence can be parsed in different ways). It is just the same as Chinese and every other language in the way. | |
| Aug 29, 2023 at 13:09 | comment | added | Y. zeng | @JanusBahsJacquet In Chinese, there are always such ambibuous expressions. Unexpectedly, the same is true for English. | |
| Aug 29, 2023 at 8:40 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | @Y.zeng It can mean both. It’s ambiguous. | |
| Aug 29, 2023 at 4:20 | comment | added | Y. zeng | "Fly from Chicago to New York, to Mami, to Los Angeles" means "Chicago → New York → Miami → Los Angeles" or "Chicago → New York, Chicago → Miami and Chicago → Los Angeles"? @JanusBahsJacquet | |
| Aug 28, 2023 at 20:30 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | Regarding what the pictures show: In the actual sentence quoted in the question, there is no literal, spatial from > to, so it doesn’t make sense to distinguish between the two meanings indicated by the illustrations. But if it’s spatial, the difference is clear: “You can fly from Chicago to New York, to Miami(,) and to Los Angeles” is ambiguous: can you fly Chicago → New York → Miami → Los Angeles (first picture), or can you fly Chicago → New York, Chicago → Miami and Chicago → Los Angeles (second picture)? | |
| Aug 28, 2023 at 15:47 | comment | added | muru | @Y.zeng or possibly "then" - for example: "The pipeline would originate in Iowa, travel through the Quad Cities, then near Peoria, then on to Decatur." | |
| Aug 28, 2023 at 5:24 | comment | added | James K | Use "and", perhaps with while: "While baking the cookies, make tea, clean the dishes and set the table." | |
| Aug 28, 2023 at 5:20 | comment | added | Y. zeng | So, A, B, C and D are in parallel? If express as progressive, how should we write it? | |
| Aug 28, 2023 at 5:19 | history | answered | James K | CC BY-SA 4.0 |