Question on noun modification 茶色い目のキレイな少女


The following is from a worksheet on noun modification:

> 文があいまいにならないように気をつけましょう。
>

>> 茶色い目のキレイな少女

>
> → 茶色い目がキレイな少女（キレイな茶色の目をした少女）  
>  → 茶色い目の、キレイな少女（茶色い目で、ルックスがキレイな少女）  
>  → 茶色い、目のキレイな少女（目がキレイで、肌が茶色い少女）

I'm not 100% about what is being shown here but I think it's saying that
茶色い目のキレイな少女 is a bit ambiguous and the three sentences that follow aren't as
ambiguous?




Right, the sentence

> 茶色い目のキレイな少女

is ambiguous and may be parsed in the following ways

  1. > 茶色い目のキレイな 少女

  2. > 茶色い目の (キレイな 少女)

  3. > 茶色い (目のキレイな 少女)

* * *

  1. In the first parsing, 茶色い目がキレイ modifies 少女, where が has become の through _ga_ - _no_ conversion

> A young lady, who has beautiful brown eyes.

This interpretation is forced by not using _ga_ - _no_ conversion

> → 茶色い目がキレイな少女

  2. In the second parsing, キレイな modifies 少女 and 茶色い目の modifies キレイな少女

> A beautiful young lady, who has brown eyes.

This parsing is suggested by inserting a comma

> → 茶色い目の、キレイな少女

  3. In the third parsing, 目のキレイな modifies 少女 and 茶色い modifies 目のキレイな少女.

> A young lady with beautiful eyes, who is brown.

This parsing is suggested by inserting a comma

> → 茶色い、目のキレイな少女

* * *

In English we have

> a beautiful brown-eyed young lady

which captures the ambiguity between (1) and (2), where it's not clear whether
the eyes are beautiful or the young lady herself.

