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The boy pushed his brother who was wearing a white short.

"who" refers to what in the sentence above?

If "his brother" was followed by a comma, would the refrence of "who" changes?

Thank you

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    In your exact example, it's syntactically unambiguous that *who* refers to the immediately preceding noun ([his] brother). If I change it to, say, I saw the boy pushing his brother who was wearing white shorts, it becomes ambiguous as to whether it's the boy or his brother who's wearing shorts. I don't know how to explain the formal syntax rule making my example different to yours, but there's no doubt in my mind that difference is real (it's not just a matter of more or less likely interpretations). – FumbleFingers Apr 15 '19 at 12:20
  • To be honest, I have wanted to state this ambiguous version which you have suggested but couldn't remember the exact structure of it. Another thing, would a comma indicate poor grammar in my original example? Thank you for contributing valuable information. –  Apr 15 '19 at 17:57
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    Including the comma (which simply reflects a *pause* in real spoken language) identifies what follows as a "non-restrictive" relative clause (which just provides additional information about "his brother"). Without the comma, it's a restrictive clause (the boy has multiple brothers; the one he pushed was *specifically the one wearing white shorts*). – FumbleFingers Apr 16 '19 at 12:48
  • Thank you for the clear explanation. –  Apr 17 '19 at 04:12

2 Answers2

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In this context, "who" refers to the brother.

If there was an intention to refer to "the boy", the sentence could have been formulated:

The boy who was wearing a white short pushed his brother.

virolino
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    I won't actually downvote, but I disagree completely with *more likely* in your first sentence. There's absolutely no possibility that *who* could refer to the boy doing the pushing in OP's example. Syntactically, it's not in the least ambiguous (and including a comma or not makes no difference to this). – FumbleFingers Apr 15 '19 at 12:24
  • In this other post (https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/204900/who-have-done-the-act-laughing-in-the-sentence-the-girl-came-to-her-mother-laug/204950) the "laughing" is definitely ambiguous. But in this case (with the white short), I would 95% understand "the brother", not "the boy". I could say that "the boy" and "who" are too far away, but it will not stand in the other case (linked earlier). However, "The boy pushed his brother wearing a white short." will make it definitely ambiguous, even to me. I have no idea why :) – virolino Apr 15 '19 at 12:30
  • Or maybe I misunderstood you? You mean I should say "definitely" instead of "more likely"? – virolino Apr 15 '19 at 12:33
  • I think you did misunderstand me. Yes, I mean you should say "definitely" instead of "more likely". It's not "95% likely" that *who* refers to the brother - it's 100% certain (because of the exact syntax - nothing to do with "probable real-world context", "intended meaning", or anything like that). – FumbleFingers Apr 15 '19 at 12:51
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    OK, thanks. I will update. – virolino Apr 15 '19 at 12:51
  • Your revised text Someone should make some significant effort to understand X isn't "natural" English, but if I was forced to "interpret" it, I'd have to say it means A person would need to make significant effort to justify assigning meaning X to this text. Which is *still not true!* No matter how much "effort" you make, you *cannot* interpret the text that way. There is *no ambiguity whatsoever*. – FumbleFingers Apr 15 '19 at 13:26
  • And there is the answer to my not-yet-asked question: how "native" does my English sound? :) 2. For you and me, there is no ambiguity. However, there are many posts, even here on ELL, where complete rubbish makes sense for some people, even without making any effort. But overall, after better analysis, I think it's best to follow the KIS strategy. 3. I will surely not force you to "interpret" :)
    • – virolino Apr 15 '19 at 13:33
  • Most of what you've written sounds perfectly "natural" to me (i.e. - your English is pretty damn good! :) If it didn't, I wouldn't have wasted your time and mine pointing out anything specific that didn't sound natural. I do realize that because you yourself are not a native Anglophone, it's at least possible that you (and other learners here on ELL) might think there's at least *some* ambiguity in OP's example. But to a native speaker there could never be any ambiguity with that exact text. (KISS rules! That's plain unadorned *never, not almost never!* :) – FumbleFingers Apr 15 '19 at 15:59