Discussion Groups / English Usage / September 2010

To me it is completely unambiguous, with meaning a being the only one
I would understand by it.  For b, it would have to be "He secretly
suggested..." or "He suggested secretly..."

Robin

Ambiguity is easily avoided by appropriate rephrasing, e.g.
He suggested a secret session be held.
He suggested meeting in secret.
(or if truly intended, He secretly suggested a meeting.
Good English style discourages three successive words
with initial S as in "secretly suggested a session.")

The grammatical point is that adverbs usually characterize
verbs (as adjectives characterize nouns.)  Thus the adverb
secretly directs the reader towards the verbs suggest or
hold, rather than to the noun session.

Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

It is not ambiguous to me.  For it to be (b), the adverb would habve
to be prior to the "that".  However, I wouldn't use the adverb
"secretly" here; more likely an adverbial PP like "in secret" or
moving it into the NP as "a secret session".  (There are circumstances
in which the last might have a different meeting.)

-GAWollman

As various people have pointed out, it's unlikely that
the suggesting was secret. But not impossible.
Certainly some people might say it that way.
Even though they would be ill-advised to, because
most people would interpret it the other way.

And, yes, it's an attachment ambiguity. The adverb
can attach to either clause. That's why adverbs
can be moved around to so many places in the
sentence -- to avoid such ambiguities.

As for "right-branching", that just means that
dependent clauses come after the clause
they're attached to.  The two parses are:

  S[He suggested                                     secretly]
                          that S[a session be held]

  S[He suggested
                          that S[a session be held secretly]]

 (S[...] indicates a clause)

A+, Navi.

-John Lawler  http://www.umich.edu/~jlawler
"Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day,
 but set fire to him and he's warm for the
 rest of his life."   -- Terry Pratchett