Does the bold apply to BOTH of the preceding paragraphs?

The first paragraph reads as a thesis with respect to which the second paragraph gives a point of support and the third a further point of support.

I don't interpret it the way that you do regarding the thesis and the multiple points of support; I think that "Further," just refers back to the previous paragraph.

But there's no actual rule or principle that can tell you the answer to this, right? See below a simpler example to simplify things and make it clear what I'm getting at in terms of the lack of rules or principles to tell you the answer:

Bob went to the store.

Jill also went to the store.

And I'm not sure how many oranges you can buy at that store.

@Andrew Van Wagner posted:

I don't interpret it the way that you do regarding the thesis and the multiple points of support; I think that "Further," just refers back to the previous paragraph.

I disagree. It think we interpret it alike. You interpret "further" as an additive signal connected to the previous paragraph, and so do I. It is the second of three points introduced to support the thought expressed in the first paragraph. The third point is introduced by the additive signal "last of all."

@Andrew Van Wagner posted:

But there's no actual rule or principle that can tell you the answer to this, right?

We are dealing with coordinated series of elements.

@Andrew Van Wagner posted:

See below a simpler example to simplify things and make it clear what I'm getting at in terms of the lack of rules or principles to tell you the answer:

Bob went to the store.

Jill also went to the store.

And I'm not sure how many oranges you can buy at that store.

OK, let's use even simpler examples:

• Jack, Jill, and Bob went up the hill.
• Jack brought apples, oranges, and carrots.

In the first sentence, "and" relates "Bob" (the third element) to the first two elements of the series.  The sentence has the same truth value as "Jack, Bob, and Jill went up the hill" and "Bob, Jack, and Jill went up the hill" and "Bob, Jill, and Jack went up the hill." It doesn't matter what order we put them in.

This shows that "and" connects the third element of the sentence with the first two together. Similar remarks can be made about the "apples, oranges, and carrots" sentence, which can also be written with the elements of the series positioned in two other ways. We can also use "and" more than once:

• Jack, and Jill, and Bob went up the hill.
• Jack brought apples, and oranges, and carrots.
• Bob went to the store, and Jill also went to the store, and I'm not sure how many oranges you can buy at the store.

Thanks!

1: I guess that I was just wondering whether the first paragraph about the "brouhaha" was necessarily a statement that the next three paragraphs are intended to support...isn't it also possible that the opening "brouhaha" paragraph is just a comment and then the three paragraphs that follow are not in fact intended to buttress or support it?

2: I apologize, since I know that I've raised this issue before, but I just get confused when you have a series of paragraphs and somewhere in that series of paragraphs there's a paragraph that opens with "But" or "And" or "Further," or something...the issue is that it's unclear whether this opening word of the paragraph in question links back...:

(A) to only the final sentence of the previous paragraph

(B) to the previous paragraph as a whole

(C) to the previous two paragraphs as a two-paragraph unit that it's referring back to

(D) to the previous three paragraphs as a three-paragraph unit that it's referring back to

(E) to something else