Rhina,I understand exactly what you are saying, and you are right
And Steve, yes, technically this is ungrammatical.
But again, I would assert that in this semantic context, specifically in light of the previous line's information that a group of children has gathered, the meaning of the line in question is pretty close to unambiguous.
I would say it's like one of those optical illusion drawings that looks, at first, like a vase, but upon closer inspection it's also two profiled faces. It depends on your vantage, on what your mind snags on first. And linguistics is game of many perspectives.
I'm a little rusty with all this, but I think that this is basically the gist of Paul Friedrich's "The Language Parallax: Linguistic Relativism and Poetic Indeterminacy." I'd give you a pithy quote, but I can't locate my copy. (Besides being a first-rate ethnographer and linguist, Friedrich is also fine sonneteer).
Rhina, thanks for all the devotion to the commentaries, I am enjoying them immensely.
Sincerely,
John
[This message has been edited by J.A. Crider (edited December 04, 2004).]
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