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I'm struggling to understand the meaning of certain phrases that follow a particular pattern. Since I lack the vocabulary to define that pattern, I'll give some examples instead:

The pet-friendly apartment complex permits dogs of all varieties except retrievers, labs, and pit bulls over 50 lbs.

Does the weight limit apply to all three dogs or only pit bulls? Sometimes the language seems to favor one interpretation:

It’s unlawful to offer, negotiate, or arrange to sell U-235 uranium.

Here, "to sell" seems clearly connected to the three preceding verbs. But, changing the first two of those verbs seems to favor the opposite interpretation:

It’s unlawful to deposit, transport, or arrange to sell U-235 uranium.

This time "to sell" seems to stand independently from all but the last verb. How then are we to derive the proper meaning from such patterns when each interpretation seems equally plausible, as it does in the first example? Do sentences like these merely exemplify tragically poor and ambiguous writing to be endured, or are there grammatical rules of construction that can guide us through interpretation?

There are practical implications. I run into this all the time when trying to interpret legislation. The following is not the best example, but it's one I had to deal with today.

California law allows schools to discipline students found to have "offered, arranged, or negotiated to sell a controlled substance." (Cal. Ed. Code §48900(d))

Is it a violation to offer a controlled substance gratuitously or only for sale? Certainly, the word "arranged" suggests the latter, given that it doesn't make sense to say that it's unlawful to "arranged a controlled substance." Still, since the language in statutes is often devoid of such clues, it would be nice to know what, if any, grammatical rules exist to describe the relationship between words like "sell" and the preceding verbs.

I've done a good bit of hunting on the internet in hopes of finding the answer on my own. The closest I could find was this site, which discusses "coordinate adjectives". The examples found there have some loose similarities to my issue, but not enough to give me confidence that the rules are applicable to my problem. I've also spent a fair amount of time thumbing through Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik's "Grammar of Contemporary English". That book is so large and technical that I'm convinced the answer lies somewhere therein; however since I lack the technical vocabulary to describe what I'm looking for, I have been unable to find the solution.

Jim Simson
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    Giving examples is far preferable to trying to describe something novel. This construction is the result of what's called Conjunction Reduction in the trade. There are 3 sentences because there are 3 verbs, but they're alike in all but one respect, so Conjunction Reduction deletes repeated material and then we don't have to say Children should never run near the edge of a pool, and children should never skip near the edge of a pool, and children should never scamper quickly near the edge of a pool. – John Lawler Nov 25 '20 at 18:35
  • So, you think you can run quickly or not quickly? Use logic, always, when reading words. Sometimes one word applies to a list, and sometimes it applies to one, only. – Yosef Baskin Nov 25 '20 at 19:25
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    @John Lawler, thank you for pointing me in the right direction on this --Hugely helpfull. – Jim Simson Nov 25 '20 at 20:03
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    @Yosef Baskin, point taken. I've modified the example to make it more susceptible to alternate interpretations. – Jim Simson Nov 25 '20 at 20:04
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    Given that I'm new to this forum, and very much trying to learn, I would love some explanation for the downvote so that I can avoid making the mistakes in the future. – Jim Simson Nov 27 '20 at 00:58

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