noun modifier vs adverbial modifier

oshea · 发表于 2019-1-2 23:05:42

I am not very sure what the modifier is modifying in the following cases. Can anyone help me out here?

I greeted the boy, playing basketball.
Who is playing basketball? The boy or myself? I think this sentence is grammatically correct but ambiguous. Am I correct? Typically "playing basketball" acts as an adverbial modifier so it means I am playing basketball. But I also found another one from PREP:

Doris Schopper became president of the international council of Médecins sans Frontiéres, known in English as “Doctors Without Borders.”
In this sentense "known xxx" is modifiy the noun "MSF" not the preceding independanct clause. How can I determine if the participle modifies the preceding noun or entire clause? Thank you in advance.

老白在费城 · 发表于 2019-1-3 07:14:09

个人认为，有逗号的时候，后面的modifier修饰前面的主语，比如playing basketball修饰的是" I "，known in English as “Doctors Without Borders.” 修饰的其实是Doris Schopper。如果没有逗号，或者加了which / who... 比如：I greeted the boy playing basketball or I greeted the boy, who's playing basketball，修饰的就是boy了; 或者Doris Schopper became president of the international council of Médecins sans Frontiéres, which is known in English as “Doctors Without Borders.”，那后面这句就确定修饰MF了。

但是这两句，尤其是第一句写的不好。一般来说应该把modifier放的和修饰对象越近越好，比如改成：Playing basketball, I greeted the boy 和 Known in English as ... Doris Schopper became..... 所以说这两句都不算最好，虽然语法没有错。除非没有更好的选项了，不然避免选。

oshea · 发表于 2019-1-3 09:13:58

老白在费城发表于 2019-1-3 07:14
个人认为，有逗号的时候，后面的modifier修饰前面的主语，比如playing basketball修饰的是" I "，known in ...

多谢回复！首先我也相信下面的句子大家都是无异议的：
Playing basketball, I greeted the boy.
I greeted the boy playing basketball.
一个是我打篮球一个是男孩打篮球。
但是还是说回这个句子：
I greeted the boy, playing basketball.
我认为这是一个歧义句，语法上没问题但是两种解释都说得通。通常的解释是分词作状语修饰前面的句子而不是相邻的名词，但是下面是prep的原句摘抄：
In February 1995, Doris Schopper became president of the international council of Médecins sans Frontiéres, known in English as “Doctors Without Borders, ” the world's largest independent, international, voluntary emergency medical assistance and relief organization.
在这里known in English as DWB是修饰前面的相邻名词MF而不是一开始的Doris Schopper, 不知道大家怎么看这个修饰词问题，是不是分词在这里到底是修饰名词还是当副词来用是根据具体语义判定的？

老白在费城 · 发表于 2019-1-3 10:43:41

oshea 发表于 2019-1-3 09:13
多谢回复！首先我也相信下面的句子大家都是无异议的：
Playing basketball, I greeted the boy.
I greete ...

啊，不好意思，看错了Doctor without borders那句话。我觉得 present particle (-ing)一般修饰的是逗号前面整句话，而known或者别的形容词，修饰的是最靠近的词。如果把known放到Doris Schopper前面，就变成了修饰Doris Schopper。

我也没办法用正统的语法规则来解释，就是一种感觉。。。

oshea · 发表于 2019-1-3 12:19:33

老白在费城发表于 2019-1-3 10:43
啊，不好意思，看错了Doctor without borders那句话。我觉得 present particle (-ing)一般修饰的是逗号前 ...

仔细上网搜了一下，这里解释的够清楚了：
https://gmatclub.com/forum/verb-ed-modifiers-vs-verb-ing-modifiers-125611.html

甚至连GMAC自己的不一致性都给出了合理的解释。

noun modifier vs adverbial modifier

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