{"id":1500,"date":"2003-10-15T09:48:08","date_gmt":"2003-10-15T16:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/jed\/2003\/10\/15\/1500.html"},"modified":"2003-10-15T09:48:08","modified_gmt":"2003-10-15T16:48:08","slug":"ambiguous-pronouns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/2003\/10\/15\/ambiguous-pronouns\/","title":{"rendered":"Ambiguous pronouns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>(Sorry if this is a repeat; I have a feeling I've talked about this before, but I can't find any reference to having done so.)<\/p>\n<p>I keep seeing sentences structured something like this:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I placed the pen on the table, then stared at it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The <span class=\"word-as-word\">it<\/span> is mildly ambiguous; it could refer to either <span class=\"word-as-word\">pen<\/span> or <span class=\"word-as-word\">table.<\/span>  In most people's usage, though, most of the time, it would refer to <span class=\"word-as-word\">pen,<\/span> because using a pronoun to refer to the object of a preposition in the preceding clause is often confusing.<\/p>\n<p>If the only noun in recent memory is the object of a preposition, it's sometimes not so bad:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I hovered over the table, staring at it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>But even then, if there's another noun that could reasonably be meant, I tend to resist assuming the object of the preposition is the referent for the pronoun:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I set the pen down.  Then I hovered over the table, staring at it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I'm inclined to read that <span class=\"word-as-word\">it<\/span> as referring to <span class=\"word-as-word\">pen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I vaguely recall that there's a great deal of argument over whether using a pronoun to refer to a preceding object-of-preposition is grammatically valid, but I don't have time to go look that up right now.  For now, I'll just note that whether or not it's correct grammar, it can be confusing and awkward, and I generally recommend rephrasing to avoid it.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Sorry if this is a repeat; I have a feeling I&#8217;ve talked about this before, but I can&#8217;t find any&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}