word order - Does 'which' refer to the noun immediately preceding it?


Is the 'which' in



Proposition 25 suggests a better definition of m-reducibility than given in Definition 23, which is also the one typically given in texts



ambiguous? It is a line from an article I've written, and the anonymous referee claims that



the reader has to guess to which of the two definitions the "which" at the beginning of the line refers.



It seems to me, however, that the which should refer to the definition immediately preceding it, since if I'd wanted it to refer to the other, I'd have written something like



Proposition 25 suggests a better definition of m-reducibility, which is also the one typically given in texts, than given in Definition 23.



As the title indicates, this is essentially a question about whether 'which' by default refers to the noun closest to it.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

verbs - "Baby is creeping" vs. "baby is crawling" in AmE

commas - Does this sentence have too many subjunctives?

grammatical number - Use of lone apostrophe for plural?

etymology - Where does the phrase "doctored" originate?

phrases - Somebody is gonna kiss the donkey

typography - When a dagger is used to indicate a note, must it come after an asterisk?

etymology - Origin of "s--t eating grin"