Written Assignment
– Syntactic Ambiguity
1.
The issue in California v. Brown was whether a jury instruction
violated a constitutional right of Brown. An abbreviated version of this
instruction reads:
You
must not be swayed by mere sentiment, conjecture, sympathy or public feeling.
This
instruction is claimed to be syntactically ambiguous. Show the ambiguity
by bracketing the sentence in two different ways. (If you have forgotten
how to do this, consult the first written assignment on ambiguity.)
2.
Consider now the following example, where the ambiguity is due to the scope
of the adverb intentionally.
a)John
intentionally hit Bill near the china cabinet.
Show
the ambiguity of the preceding sentence by bracketing it in two different
ways. (In the event that you have difficulty in seeing the ambiguity, try
moving the prepositional phrase to the beginning of the sentence, as shown
in b) below.)
b)Near
the china cabinet John intentionally hit Bill.
Is
the sentence with the prepositional phrase moved to the front still ambiguous?
Explain.
3.
Assume that the legislature is drafting a statute that permits legal possession
of marijuana only for medical use. The statute then addresses illegal possession.
Which wording, a) or b) below, should the legislature adopt, and why? (Hint:
Refer to your analysis of question 2 above.)
a)Whoever
knowingly possesses marijuana for an illegal purpose will be fined $500.
b) Whoever
for an illegal purpose knowingly possesses marijuana will be fined $500.