One day, I came across this sentence:

1. It was too tempting a chance to resist.

Even though this sounded perfectly natural to me, as I tried to get the full meaning out of it, I found it a little strange. What I thought right to say is this:

2. It was a chance too tempting to resist.

If you look at the sentence 1 closely, it seems to mean that the "too tempting a chance" had to be resisted by me. Like as in "it is something to resist", which means this something should be resisted by you. It seems that "to resist" is a simple adjective prepositional phrase that modifies a whole complete noun phrase "too tempting a chance". The meaning it conveys, to me, is "too tempting a chance I am to (or should) resist."

The sentence 2 means "a chance that was too tempting to resist", which means that the chance was hard to resist, for it was too tempting.

The reason this sentence 1 seems, to me, to mean the different thing from the sentence 2 is the apartness of the "to resist" from "too tempting". When they are separated with a noun "a chance" in between them, as in sentence 1, it seems that they lose their usual characteristic of describing that "too...adjective...to...do something", and just work as separate adjectives: "to resist" explains the whole noun clause "too tempting a chance", not just "too tempting". So something like this:

It was ([too tempting a chance] to resist), not this chance was ([too tempting] a chance [to resist]).

But then again, I'm not native, and my brain gets confused a lot.

So my question is, does sentence 1 actually mean the same thing as the sentence 2 (most logical explanation as to the meaning of the sentence 1), or does it mean what I meant in my analysis? And if it does mean the same thing as sentence 2, how can it work like that even when they are separated with another noun in between them?

One day, I came across this sentence:

1. This chance was too tempting a chance to resist.

Even though this sounded perfectly natural to me, as I tried to get the full meaning out of it, I found it a little strange. What I thought right to say is this:

2. This chance was a chance too tempting to resist.

If you look at the sentence 1 closely, it seems to mean that the "too tempting a chance" had to be resisted by me. Like as in "it is something to resist", which means this something should be resisted by you. It seems that "to resist" is a simple adjective prepositional phrase that modifies a whole complete noun phrase "too tempting a chance". The meaning it conveys, to me, is "too tempting a chance I am to (or should) resist."

The sentence 2 means "a chance that was too tempting to resist", which means that the chance was hard to resist, for it was too tempting.

The reason this sentence 1 seems, to me, to mean the different thing from the sentence 2 is the apartness of the "to resist" from "too tempting". When they are separated with a noun "a chance" in between them, as in sentence 1, it seems that they lose their usual characteristic of describing that "too...adjective...to...do something", and just work as separate adjectives: "to resist" explains the whole noun clause "too tempting a chance", not just "too tempting". So something like this:

It was ([too tempting a chance] to resist), not this chance was ([too tempting] a chance [to resist]).

But then again, I'm not native, and my brain gets confused a lot.

So my question is, does sentence 1 actually mean the same thing as the sentence 2 (most logical explanation as to the meaning of the sentence 1), or does it mean what I meant in my analysis? And if it does mean the same thing as sentence 2, how can it work like that even when they are separated with another noun in between them?

One day, I came across this sentence:

1. It was too tempting a chance to resist.

Even though this sounded perfectly natural to me, as I tried to get the full meaning out of it, I found it a little strange. What I thought right to say is this:

2. It was a chance too tempting to resist.

If you look at the sentence 1 closely, it seems to mean that the "too tempting a chance" had to be resisted by me. Like as in "it is something to resist", which means this something should be resisted by you. It seems that "to resist" is a simple adjective prepositional phrase that modifies a whole complete noun phrase "too tempting a chance". The meaning it conveys, to me, is "too tempting a chance I am to (or should) resist."

The sentence 2 means "a chance that was too tempting to resist", which means that the chance was hard to resist, for it was too tempting.

The reason this sentence 1 seems, to me, to mean the different thing from the sentence 2 is the apartness of the "to resist" from "too tempting". When they are separated with a noun "a chance" in between them, as in sentence 1, it seems that they lose their usual characteristic of describing that "too...adjective...to...do something", and just work as separate adjectives. But then again, I'm not native, and my brain gets confused a lot.

So my question is, does sentence 1 actually mean the same thing as the sentence 2 (most logical explanation as to the meaning of the sentence 1), or does it mean what I meant in my analysis? And if it does mean the same thing as sentence 2, how can it work like that even when they are separated with another noun in between them?

One day, I came across this sentence:

1. It was too tempting a chance to resist.

Even though this sounded perfectly natural to me, as I tried to get the full meaning out of it, I found it a little strange. What I thought right to say is this:

2. It was a chance too tempting to resist.

If you look at the sentence 1 closely, it seems to mean that the "too tempting a chance" had to be resisted by me. Like as in "it is something to resist", which means this something should be resisted by you. It seems that "to resist" is a simple adjective prepositional phrase that modifies a whole complete noun phrase "too tempting a chance". The meaning it conveys, to me, is "too tempting a chance I am to (or should) resist."

The sentence 2 means "a chance that was too tempting to resist", which means that the chance was hard to resist, for it was too tempting.

The reason this sentence 1 seems, to me, to mean the different thing from the sentence 2 is the apartness of the "to resist" from "too tempting". When they are separated with a noun "a chance" in between them, as in sentence 1, it seems that they lose their usual characteristic of describing that "too...adjective...to...do something", and just work as separate adjectives: "to resist" explains the whole noun clause "too tempting a chance", not just "too tempting". So something like this:

It was ([too tempting a chance] to resist), not this chance was ([too tempting] a chance [to resist]).

But then again, I'm not native, and my brain gets confused a lot.

So my question is, does sentence 1 actually mean the same thing as the sentence 2 (most logical explanation as to the meaning of the sentence 1), or does it mean what I meant in my analysis? And if it does mean the same thing as sentence 2, how can it work like that even when they are separated with another noun in between them?