Johanna, thanks for your edifying response. Kirsten

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Johanna Rubba <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Nov 21, 2005 3:36 PM
Subject: Re: Adjective phrase modifying a possessive
To: Kirsten Taylor <[log in to unmask]>

Kirsten,

For some reason, my messages are not getting through to the ATEG list.
While I work on that with the list admin., could you post my answer to
your query on the list?  -- Thanks. Here it is:


"My" modifies "neighbor", not "car", in your phrase; it would be quite
bizarre to have a modifier for the later noun, "car", come between "my"
and "neighbor's". It would create a discontinuous (interrupted) noun
phrase:

[my                      neighbor's]
       [cruel, etc.                            car]

The only way to have a modifier between "my" and "neighbor's" modify
the later noun would be to interpret "neighbor's car"  as a compound
noun. In such a case, the main noun of the compound is the second one,
so ALL previous modifiers would apply to it. This, of course, would
make "my" apply to "car", not "neighbor", a rather odd reading:

My damaged [neighbor's car] ...

It is the particular meaning that makes this odd. Notice that in a
more-generic situation, this works fine:

My antique [cobbler's bench] ...

What makes your example puzzling, perhaps, is the length of the
modifier of "neighbor", and the fact that "neighbor" is possessive,
after this long modifier. This might cause some processing difficulties
as a reader/listener tries to comprehend it in real time. This kind of
structure -- one which leads a listener to prepare to attach a word or
phrase to the wrong upcoming word/phrase -- is called a "garden path"
construction, because it "leads the listener down the garden path." The
typical example is

The horse raced past the barn fell.

The listener initially parses "raced past the barn" as the predicate
for "the horse", but then the verb "fell" comes up, and the listener
has to re-interpret "raced past the barn" as a passive participial
modifier of "horse", an abbreviated version of

The horse [that was raced past the barn] fell.

Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
Linguistics Minor Advisor
English Department
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel.: 805.756.2184
Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596
Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374
URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba

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