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James is Max's supposedly Irish ancestor.

james is Max's supposed Irish ancestor.

What can we interpret from these? Which is the correct one?

I understand that "supposedly" modifies the adjective "Irish" and "supposed" modifies "ancestor". But it doesn't help me reach a conclusion about the uncertainty factor of the sentence.

Is there uncertainty about James being Irish or max's ancestor?

No context, just the two independent sentences.

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  • In sentence #1, Max has an ancestor. this ancestor may be James, and James may be Irish. In sentence #2, however, James is Irish and may be Max's Irish ancestor (while it cannot be clearly inferred that Max necessarily has an Irish ancestor).
    – Jonas
    Commented Jun 6, 2014 at 21:38
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    I can't really say OP's distinction strikes a chord with me. My immediate thought is that "supposed" here is a slightly unusual usage, so following standard procedure I'd look for a possible semantic distinction. Since supposedly is normally a somewhat dismissive way of showing skepticism (the ancestor isn't really Irish, even though he claims to be), I just imagine supposed as having some vague sense of whatever James may be, he's probably not Max's Irish ancestor, despite people thinking that he is.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jun 6, 2014 at 21:46

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  • James is Max's supposedly Irish ancestor.
  • James is Max's supposed Irish ancestor.

In the first sentence, supposedly modifies Irish. The sentence implies that James is Max's ancestor and that he is supposedly Irish.

In the second one, the adjective supposed modifies the noun ancestor. And so, the sentence implies that James may or may not be Max's ancestor, but James is certainly Irish.

As long as you cannot offer any context to determine whether James is actually Irish, or whether he may or may not be Max's ancestor, I'd say that both sentences are acceptable, and grammatically correct regardless of any contexts.

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