I 've been reading a novel " The maze runner", in it, I found this stark odd sentence : [Sometimes they do things just to make me do the opposite of what they think I think they think I want to do.] What is the grammatical constitution of the sentence : 'what they think I think they think I want to do'? Could you rephrase this sentence so that I could understand what this meant? Thank you for in advance.
leobrounwhat they think I think they think I want to do
~ the thing that they think that I think that they think (that) I want to do
leobrounCould you rephrase this sentenceso that I could understand what this meant?so that I can understand what it means?
I'm afraid not, because I don't understand it myself.
You can break it down backwards from the end if that helps.
What do they think I want to do? Let's say that's X.
What do I think X is? = What do I think that they think I want to do? That's Y.
What do they think Y is? = What do they think that I think that they think I want to do? That's Z.
So "what they think I think they think I want to do" is Z.
That's not exactly helpful for me, but maybe it makes some sense to you.
CJ
