Quote:
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Originally Posted by Fish
This line;
"..and I saw an airplane hit the tower.
Does it mean; I "saw" a plane hit the tower, or could it be also: I saw a plane hd hit the tower?
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I think "saw" refers to the whole following clause ("an airplane hit the tower") = [I saw [an airplane hit the tower]]. That is, you saw the action take place, not just the airplane. It wouldn't make any sense if it only referred to the airplane. If you analyzed it that way then 'saw an airplane' would have to be its own constituent, and it would be really unclear what 'hit' - if you analyzed it as [[I saw an airplane] hit the tower], it would imply something along the lines of a huge neon sign saying "I saw an airplane" hitting the tower.
/BA in Linguistics, working on MA in Applied Linguistics
