a garden path in the wild

[loveschak]

1. The horse raced past the barn fell.
2. The man who hunts ducks out on weekends.
3. Fat people eat accumulates.
4. The tycoon sold the offshore oil tracts for a lot money wanted to kill JR.

These are called garden path sentences---sentences that lead the reader or listener "up the garden path" to an incorrect syntactic analysis. For example, the

Comments

[yourdesertrose]

I tried reading The Scarlet Letter when I was about 10. It didn't work so well. I think I got through it, but probably didn't understand much of what the writer intended. Maybe it's time I reread it, along with a few other things.

[flurious]

My first reading had "intermixed" as a participle.

[loveschak]

Well aren't you special.

[tonapah]

I don't see a way to read your fourth example as a correct sentence.

[loveschak]

The magnate who was sold the mansion for a low price loved JR, but the tycoon sold the offshore oil tracts for a lot money wanted to kill JR.

[lost1]

I still think that sentence requires a "who" or "which" or "that" to make it a valid statement.

the tycoon WHO/WHICH/THAT sold the offshore oil tracks for a lot of money wanted to kill JR.

[loveschak]

I think you may still be interpreting the sentence wrong. The filler words would be: the tycoon WHO WAS sold the offshore oil tracks for a lot of money wanted to kill JR. It wasn't the tycoon doing the selling, it was the tycoon doing the buying.

English is replete with examples where an object is modified by a participle (or other adjective) coming after it. I captured the man wanted by authorities. Some of the trees planted in the field withered after a while. I'll never be a person apt to gamble. That dye put into your hair looks ridiculous.

[tellumo]

Interesting. My first interpretation of the first one involved "fell" as the landform, not the verb.

[mollyswanson]

Hah - must be evidence that you're actually British.

[hooveraardvark]

hey, i added you - i'm jonah gold's girlfriend.