The judge without elaboration denied the claims that her ruling did no

Tricky.



So the movement and altering of the 'without elaboration'/'without elaborating'/'with a lack of elaboration' modifier tells me that's what this question is about--modifiers.

I thought A was okay.

B's meaning didn't work for me, though. Mostly, it seems now that the judge denied claims without elaboration that her ruling did not conform to law... meaning, the judge denied some claims. The judge's ruling did not confirm to law. But the judge did not elaborate, when she denied the claims, that the ruling did not conform to law. (That is, it is not clear that the claim the judge is denying is *that her ruling did not conform to law*, clearly what the sentence is going for).

C is similar to A, the difference being 'without elaborating' and 'without elaboration.' I didn't want to deal with this yet, so I moved to D.

D. "with a lack of elaboration," well that's just silly. How can someone be 'with a lack' of something. 'With' implies the presence of, 'a lack' is the absence of... I don't know, maybe you can have the presence of an absence, but that's just a metaphysical nightmare, so I'm throwing it out.

E. Same as D. Metaphysical nightmare.

So that took me to A and C. I decided "The judge without elaboration" seems to be modifying the judge herself, and "The judge without elaborating denied," now 'without elaborating' described how the judge 'denied' something. The latter makes much more sense.

Hi,
i didn't understand the difference between "elaboration" and "elaborating".

It's a subtle difference. 'Elaborating' is the action, and elaboration is, like... the concept of the action.

Think of it kind of like the difference between 'exercising' and 'exercise.'