When an adjective is in front of a noun listed as part of a group, does the adjective also apply to the other nouns? [closed]

Question

I will use an example to explain my question...

Transphobia is an irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against transgender people.

In the above sentence, is the true definition that only the fear is irrational, or is the aversion and discrimination also irrational?

Is the true meaning:

• Transphobia is an irrational fear of transgender people.
• Transphobia is an irrational aversion to transgender people.
• Transphobia is an irrational discrimination against transgender people.

Or:

• Transphobia is an irrational fear of transgender people.
• Transphobia is an aversion to transgender people.
• Transphobia is discrimination against transgender people.

Answer 1

Either version would be correct. In other words, we don't know whether "irrational" is outside the series (modifying all conjuncts) or inside it (modifying only "fear", since it is part of the first conjunct). On ELU this issue is sometimes called "attachment ambiguity", and there is a tag for it if you'd like to research it further. Wikipedia discusses it in the article on Syntactic ambiguity.