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"He is not eating apples and oranges" (I know the full form is "He is not eating apples and he is not eating oranges") though after "and" we did not write the full form.

Could you please tell if the same thing applies in this sentence?
"He is not listening to me and eating apples"

I assume the full form is "He is not listening to me and he is not eating apples" Kindly tell me if my perception is correct?

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    The syntax is ambiguous, but the "sentence" is absurd anyway, since there's no logical connection between listening (or not) to someone and eating apples (or not), so I can't see why you'd even want to make those two assertions consecutively, let alone try to combine them into a single utterance. Commented Apr 21 at 16:01
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    Note that "He is not eating apples and oranges" doesn't necessarily mean "He is not eating apples and he is not eating oranges". It could mean "He is only eating oranges, not apples as well" (or indeed, "He is eating only apples, he's not also eating oranges"). Context is everything. Commented Apr 21 at 16:09
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    @FumbleFingers what i assumed from your answer is that the sentence is confusing and could mean both as in 1."He is not listening to me and he is not eating apples" 2. "He is not listening to me and he is eating apples".Did I read your answer correct? Commented Apr 21 at 16:20
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    Lacking any other context, I'd assume "He is not listening to me and eating apples" means either he is ignoring my advice not to eat apples and eating them anyway, or he is ignoring me entirely and eating apples whilst doing so.
    – Showsni
    Commented Apr 21 at 16:22
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    It's such a bizarre sentence i wouldn't think too much about what it might "mean". The syntactic point is that it's ambiguous / context dependent whether the scope of not (or many other words, particularly adverbs, in similar constructions) carries forward to a second element in such "parallel" constructions. Commented Apr 21 at 16:24

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The meaning is ambiguous. Attempts to apply logic will fail. It could be understood in two completely different ways.

The most likely meaning, since "listening to me" and "eating apples" seem to be completely unrelated is "He is not listening to me. Instead he is eating apples. Possibly the infered connection would be "I told him not to eat apples but he is ignoring my advice"

But this is a weird sentence. It is easy to mash words together and end up with something that is grammatical but meaningless. Understanding the "meaning" is not a problem that actually occurs in reality.

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  • Perfectly explained.thank you Commented Apr 21 at 16:42

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