Question

I bought the exact same phone and ran home and recorded our greeting from the first phone onto it. I wrapped up the old phone in the scarf that Grandma was never able to finish because of my privacy, and I put that in a grocery bag, and I put that in a box, and I put that in another box, and I put that under a bunch of stuff in my closet, like my jewelry workbench and albums of foreign currencies.

—Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,
Jonathan Safran Foer

The bold text is ambiguous and has two meanings. Check the two possible meanings for the bold text.

The box is hidden under the jewelry workbench and albums of foreign currencies.

The jewelry workbench is hiding the albums of foreign currencies.

The jewelry workbench and albums of foreign currencies are hidden under stuff in the closet.

The jewelry workbench and foreign albums are what the narrator likes most.

Answer 1

The two possible readings are (1) and (3).

- (1) The box is hidden under the jewelry workbench and albums of foreign currencies. (Natural reading: the workbench and albums are examples of the “bunch of stuff” on top of the box.)
- (3) The jewelry workbench and albums of foreign currencies are hidden under stuff in the closet. (Alternate parse: the phrase can be read so that those items themselves are among things buried under other stuff in the closet.)

Options (2) and (4) are not supported by the sentence.