Garden-path sentence

It is a special type of sentence that creates a momentarily ambiguous interpretation because it contains a word or phrase that can be interpreted in multiple ways. When read, the sentence seems to be grammatically incorrect and nonsensical, and often requires careful parsing to understand correctly. Garden-path sentences are not usually desirable in writing that is intended to communicate clearly.

Examples

"The old man the boat."

This is a common example that has been the subject of psycholinguistic research and has been used to test the capabilities of artificial intelligence efforts. The difficulty in correctly parsing the sentence results from the fact that readers tend to interpret old as an adjective. Reading the, they expect a noun or an adjective to follow, and when they then read old followed by man they assume that the phrase the old man is to be interpreted as determiner – adjective – noun. When readers encounter another the following the supposed noun man (rather than the expected verb, as in e.g., The old man washed the boat), they are forced to re-analyze the sentence. As with other examples, one explanation for initial reader misunderstanding is that a sequence of words or phrases tends to be analyzed in terms of a frequent pattern, in this case, determiner – adjective – noun. Rephrased, the sentence could be rewritten as "Those who man the boat are old."

"The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families."

This is another commonly cited example. Like the previous sentence, the initial parse is to read the complex houses as a noun phrase, but the complex houses married does not make semantic sense (only people can marry) and the complex houses married and single makes no sense at all (after married and ... , the expectation is another verb to form a compound predicate). The correct parsing is The complex [noun phrase] houses [verb] married and single soldiers [noun phrase] and their families [noun phrase]. Rephrased, the sentence could be rewritten as “The complex accommodates married and single soldiers, along with their families.”

"The horse raced past the barn fell."

This frequently used, classic example of a garden-path sentence is attributed to Thomas Bever. The sentence is hard to parse because raced can be interpreted as a finite verb or as a passive participle. Readers initially interpret raced as the main verb in the simple past, but when they encounter fell, they are forced to re-analyze the sentence, concluding that raced is being used as a passive participle and horse is the direct object of the subordinate clause. The sentence could be replaced by "The horse that was raced past the barn fell", where that was raced past the barn tells the readers which horse is under discussion. Such examples of initial ambiguity resulting from a "reduced relative with [a] potentially intransitive verb" ("The horse raced past the barn fell.") can be contrasted with the lack of ambiguity for a non-reduced relative ("The horse that was raced past the barn fell.") or with a reduced relative with an unambiguously transitive verb ("The horse frightened in the barn fell."). As with other examples, one explanation for initial reader misunderstanding is that a sequence of phrases tends to be analyzed in terms of the frequent pattern: agent – action – patient.

In other languages

Chinese

"本食堂欢迎新老师生前来就餐。"

This sentence can be interpreted in two ways:

"The canteen welcomes new and old teachers and students to come and dine here."

Structurally:

[本[食堂]] [欢迎] [新老[师生]] [前来] [就餐]

[This [canteen]] [welcome] [new and old [teachers and students]] [come forward] [have meal]

This interpretation would be the most natural in a typical context. It implies that the canteen welcomes new and old teachers and students, indicating a general invitation to all.

"The canteen welcomes new teachers to come and dine here when they are alive."

Structurally:

[本[食堂]] [欢迎] [新[老师]] [生前] [来] [就餐]

[This [canteen]] [welcome] [new [teachers]] [while alive] [come] [have meal]

This interpretation might seem more awkward and unnatural in regular usage. The phrase "生前" (shēng qián) typically refers to "while alive" or "before death." While this interpretation could be grammatically correct, it introduces a somewhat bizarre and formal tone, making it sound like the canteen only welcomes teachers who are alive, which seems overly specific and strange for such a context. So, the more natural and probable meaning is the first one, where the canteen is simply extending a welcoming message to both new and old teachers and students.

German

"Modern bei dieser Bilderausstellung werden vor allem die Rahmen, denn sie sind aus Holz und im feuchten Keller gelagert worden."

This example turns on the two meanings of German modern: the adjective meaning English 'modern', and the verb meaning 'to rot'.

The theme of the "picture exhibition" in the first clause lends itself to interpreting modern as an adjective meaning 'contemporary', until the last two words of the sentence:

• 'Most of all, it is the picture frames in this exhibition that are becoming modern, because they are made out of wood, and had been stored in the dank cellar.'

This causes dissonance at the end of the sentence, and forces backtracking to recover the proper usage and sense (and different pronunciation) of the first word of the sentence, not as the adjective meaning "contemporary", but as the verb meaning "going moldy":

• 'Most of all, it is the picture frames in this exhibition that are becoming moldy, because they are made out of wood and had been stored in the dank cellar.'

The ambiguity, however, is only perceived in writing, since the two occurrences of the word modern in the sentence have different pronunciations (for 'going moldy' it is stressed on the first syllable, while for 'contemporary' on the second one).

Portuguese

"Mãe suspeita da morte do filho e foge."

This example makes use of the ambiguity between the verb suspeita and the adjective suspeita, which is also captured by the English word suspect. It also makes use of a misreading in which the word e is passed over by the parser, which lends to two different meanings.

• In a first parse, the sentence might be read as '[A] mother [who is the] suspect of son's death runs away.' In this sentence, the suspeita serves as an adjective for the mother who runs away due to the fact that e is easily overlooked.
• A second parse, however, reveals the true reading of the sentence to be '[A] mother suspects son's death and runs away.' Suspeita now serves as a verb and reveals that a mother suspects that her son might be dead.

French

"Pas de porte à vendre." (sign on an empty commercial site)

The ambiguity hinges on the word "pas" which can be a negative particle as in "Je ne sais pas" ("I don't know") or a noun meaning "step" as in "Je fais un pas en avant" ("I take a step forwards")

Thus the sign can be understood as "pas de" = no + "porte" = door + "à vendre" = for sale; thus the meaning would be "No door(s) for sale"

The second parse recognises the legal term "pas de porte" = "lease" or "leasehold" and the meaning becomes "Leasehold for sale".