1

Here is an example sentence from a textbook:

The man and the woman | dressed in black | then stood up.

The upright slashes denote chuncking the clause into intonation groups for speech. I am wondering whether the participial clause dressed in black applies only to the woman or both the man and the woman?

Improve this question
5
  • Do you mean "The man and the woman, dressed in black, then stood up." vs. "The man, and the woman dressed in black, then stood up."?
    – user3169
    Commented Jun 30, 2017 at 4:32
  • @user3169 The pauses are indicated by pipes here. A pause such as that indicated by a comma is expected. I see no pipe between man and and.
    – P. E. Dant Reinstate Monica
    Commented Jun 30, 2017 at 5:05
  • @user3169 I mean the first version
    – Eunice
    Commented Jun 30, 2017 at 6:02
  • I added the second option since it would match "dressed in black applies only to the woman" that you mentioned, and so you can see the difference.
    – user3169
    Commented Jun 30, 2017 at 16:00
  • So first they dressed in black and then they stood up? Or were they already dressed in black.
    – James
    Commented Jun 30, 2017 at 19:25

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

Usually this would be written "the man and the woman, dressed in black, then stood up". The pause in speech, which is written with a comma (or in your case, a bar), means that "the man and the woman" is a group in this context, so "dressed in black" applies to both. If there were no pause between "the woman" and "dressed in black", it would refer only to the woman.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .