When "who" is an antecedent, does it need to directly touch the person it's referring to?

When who is an antecedent, does it need to directly touch the person it's referring to?

For example:

I called Sally, who urged me to move in with her in Texas.

OR

I called Sally, the mother of Selena Gomez, who urged me to move in with her in Texas.

1. In the second case, is the who incorrectly referring back to Selena Gomez? If it refers to Selena Gomez, how to write the second sentence to refer Sally?

2. In the second case, is the her incorrectly referring back to Selena Gomez? If her refers to Selena Gomez, how to write the second sentence to refer Sally?

3. In the second sentence if who refers to Sally, how to write this sentence to refer Selena Gomez?

4. In the second sentence if her refers to Sally, how to write this sentence to refer Selena Gomez?

Solution 1:

I agree with rajah9's answer. But your very interesting example is not 100% ambiguous in speech, since there is an intonation of

I called Sally, the mother of Selena Gomez, who urged me to move in with her in Texas.

which makes the "who" refer unambiguously to "Sally". If you pitch your voice low for the part set off by commas, "the mother of Selena Gomez", this makes it a parenthetical (which could have been spelled using parens instead of commas), and now the "who" can't refer back to "Selena Gomez".

This may be a reflection of the pitch agreement between antecedent and pronoun that was discovered by William Cantrall. (Cantrall's paper was given before the Chicago Linguistic Society, but I can't recall the year.)

Solution 2:

Who does not always bind to the closest antecedent. I think the who second sentence does not unambiguously refer to Sally or Selena. (There's no "incorrect" here.)

In the second sentence, most speakers would ask: Who urged you to move?

If the mother is the person urging, I might write:

I called Sally, who urged me to move in with her daughter in Texas. She's the mother of Selena Gomez.

or

The mother of Selena Gomez, Sally, urged me to move in with her in Texas.

If Selena is doing the urging, I might write:

Selena Gomez (whose mother is Sally) urged me to move in with her in Texas.

or

Selena Gomez urged me to move in with her in Texas. I also spoke to her mother, Sally.