[achierius]

Linguists however know that grammar is, indeed, important for linguistic comprehension. For example, the German "Ich sehe die Frau mit dem Fernglas" (I see the woman with the binoculars) is _unambiguous_ because "die Frau" and "mit dem Fernglas" match in both gender and case. If this weren't the case, it could be either "I see (the woman with the binoculars)" or "I see (the woman) with [using] the binoculars". Even in German you might encounter this e.g. if you instead had to say "Ich sehe das Mädchen mit dem Fernglas", as das Mädchen (the girl) is neuter rather than feminine in gender.

[puchatek]

Both example sentences are equally ambiguous. The gender of the sentence's object is irrelevant. It does not affect the prepositional phrase.

[FeepingCreature]

Am German, can confirm. If there's a rule here, it exists only in the heads of linguists.

[famouswaffles]

My point is that Grammar is to language what Newton was to gravity i.e useful fiction that works well enough for most scenarios, not that language has no structure.

The first 5 minutes of this video do good job of explaining what i'm getting at - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNJDH0eogAw

[suddenlybananas]

Wow a 1 hour video by some crank, guess all of linguistics and cognitive science has been a waste of time.

[famouswaffles]

I said you need only watch the first 5 minutes to see what I was getting at.

You would also think emphasizing grammar's usefulness would make it plain that I do not think it is a waste of time.

[tkot]

> For example, the German "Ich sehe die Frau mit dem Fernglas" (I see the woman with the binoculars) is _unambiguous_ because "die Frau" and "mit dem Fernglas" match in both gender and case. If this weren't the case, it could be either "I see (the woman with the binoculars)" or "I see (the woman) with [using] the binoculars".

My German is pretty rusty, why exactly is it unambiguous?

I don't see how changing the noun would make a difference. "Ich sehe" followed by any of these: "den Mann mit dem Fernglas", "die Frau mit dem Fernglas", "das Mädchen mit dem Fernglas" sounds equally ambiguous to me.

[AgentMatt]

It is indeed ambiguous. I don't understand which alternative the parent is implying.

[wruza]

Die Frau and dem Fernglass don’t bind tightly though.

In my view, this phrase is only unambiguous to those who feel the preposition tradition, and all the heavy lifting is done here by “mit” (and “durch” in the opposite case, if one wants to make it clear). Articles are irrelevant and are dictated by the verb and the preposition, whose requirements are sort of arbitrary (sehen Akk., mit Dat.) and fixed. There’s no article-controlled variation that could change meaning, to my knowkedge it would be simply incorrect.

I’m also quite rusty on Deutsch, aber habe es nicht völlig vergessen, it seems.