and similar expressions. These are equivalent to exceptions introduced by conditional particles. The governing principle is that anything completing a noun phrase belongs to the same category as an exception introduced by “except”; anything relating to the statement itself—that is, the predicative relationship between subject and predicate, or between a verb and its subject—is equivalent in meaning to an exception introduced by a conditional particle.

It is well known that subsequent prepositions and conditional particles relate to the preceding verb itself, namely, “I have endowed,” which constitutes the statement, or clause. Exceptions, substitutive apposition, adjectival modifiers, and explanatory apposition, by contrast, relate to the nouns that are the objects of this verb.

The statement of someone who makes this distinction may also be understood as referring to unrelated clauses, as when you say:

“I have endowed this for my children, then for so-and-so’s children, then for the poor, on condition that only those among them with dependants receive anything.”

In such a case, there may be strong grounds for restricting the condition to the final clause, since it is unrelated to the first clause and does not concern the same category. This differs from children and grandchildren, who belong to a single category. His statement must be understood in one of these two senses, or something similar, given the evidence we have cited that this was his intention. Moreover, even if this entails restricting the scope of his statement, that restriction is required for the reasons we have given.

For if he has taken the statement of the imams who said, “When an exception or an attribute follows several clauses joined by conjunctions, it applies to all the clauses,” and restricted it to certain conjunctions on the basis of what he considered evidence, then our restricting his statement on the basis of the explicit statements of theirs that we have cited