評(píng)論
打印
"Having robbed the bank in record time, it was possible to make off with the town's chocolate rabbit as well."
“在飛速洗劫了銀行之后，還能偷走鎮(zhèn)上的巧克力兔子。”
The modifying phrase in this sentence seems unrelated to anything else,
這句話中的修飾短語似乎并沒有與任何東西相連，
and so we're clueless about who the chocolate-loving criminal could possibly be.
所以我們不知道這個(gè)喜愛巧克力的竊賊會(huì)是誰。
Giving the modifier something to modify will solve the problem.
給修飾語一個(gè)修飾對(duì)象就會(huì)解決這個(gè)問題。
Then there's another group called the squinting modifiers because they're stuck between two things and could feasibly refer to either.
還有一種叫做岐形修飾語，因?yàn)樗鼈儽豢ㄔ趦蓸訓(xùn)|西之中，修飾哪一個(gè)都講得通。
Often, these modifiers are adverbs, like the one in this sentence:
通常，這些修飾語是副詞，就像這句里的：
"Robbers who steal chocolate bunnies rapidly attract the outrage of onlookers."
“這個(gè)竊賊偷巧克力兔子很快引起了旁觀者的憤怒。”
"Rapidly" is the modifier here,
“很快”在這里是修飾語，
but what's not clear is whether it's referring to the speed of the chocolate thievery, or how quickly it alerts the furious onlookers.
但不清楚是指偷巧克力很快呢，還是說很快引起了憤慨的旁觀者的憤怒。
To clarify, we can either put the modifier closer to its intended phrase, which works in some cases,
為了使之清晰，我們可以把修飾語放得離修飾對(duì)象近一點(diǎn)，有些情況這樣是可行的，
or we can entirely reword the sentence so that the modifier no longer squints, but clearly applies to only one part.
或者我們可以改述這句話，從而使修飾語不偏向雙方，但還是明確地指代一個(gè)部分。
"Chocolate bunny-thieving robbers rapidly attract the outrage of onlookers."
“偷巧克力兔子的竊賊很快激起了旁觀者的憤怒。”
Justice will eventually come to the chocolate thief, but in the meantime,
正義最終會(huì)使巧克力竊賊受到懲罰，
our task is to avoid verbal ambiguity by making it clear which parts of the sentences modifiers belong to.
但同時(shí)我們的任務(wù)是通過使句中的修飾對(duì)象清晰，從而避免歧義。
That way, we can at least maintain grammatical law and order.
這樣一來，我們至少能保持原有的語法規(guī)則和次序。
