I have learned that time expression should be at the beginning or at the end of a sentence. I saw following sentence in a CNN article.
He was shot during an attack by an ISIS supporter on a supermarket.
I would write:
He was shot on a supermarket during an attack by an ISIS supporter.
Would be it ok?
While the rules that EFL students are taught about the ordering of modifiers are not always strictly followed by native speakers, I do agree that there is something odd about
He was shot during an attack by an ISIS supporter on a supermarket.
In fact, I would parse it as "by an ISIS supporter [who was] on a supermarket", and suppose that it means that the sniper was on the roof of the supermarket. But "on a supermarket" is such an unusual expression, that I would expect to see "on top of a supermarket" or "on the roof of a supermarket".
If the meaning is that the person was shot inside a supermarket, then, first, it must be "in a supermarket"; and second, I agree that He was shot in a supermarket during an attack by an ISIS supporter is a much more likely order.
The first order, He was shot during an attack by an ISIS supporter in a supermarket is still possible, though; and reads that either the ISIS supporter, or the attack, was in the supermarket, as opposed to that being where he was shot.
