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I'm so confused with this example.
they saw the monkey climbing over the fence.
First I interpreted this like number 1 below and then, that sentence came to me differently later like number 2.
1.They saw the monkey and it was climbing over the fence somewhere.
2.They were climbing over the fence in front of them while they saw a monkey somewhere.
Which interpretation is right?
and how can I cope with such an ambiguousness?
I understood it as your 1.
I think I found an explanation here.
After verbs of perception (see, watch, hear, listen, feel, smell, notice, observe etc.), the present participle expresses an action that continues over a period of time, regardless of whether we perceive the whole action or only part of it:
- I felt the ground shaking for about half a minute.
(I felt that the ground was shaking.)- I saw the burglar climbing over the fence.
(I saw it as the burglar was climbing over the fence.)- I heard my brother singing in the bathroom.
(I heard my brother as he was singing in the bathroom.)If we want to emphasise that the action is completed, we use the bare infinitive:
- I felt the ground shake once.
(I felt it as the ground shook once.)
There's no ambiguity in this construction ( object+ present participle ), because the participle here stands after the noun, which it denotes (reduced relative clause ). Thus, the first interpretation is correct. The monkey was climbing
In order to express the second variant you should say: Climbing over the fence, they saw a monkey.
The first interpretation is right.
The monkey was climbing over the fence and they saw it.
For your second interpretation this would be put as: they saw the monkey while climbing over the fence.
