半分のお金 VS お金の半分

Hi all. I've heard about the typhoon... I hope you're all safe!

Recently I've been struggling with counters and possessives... I would like to compare these example sentences. 1) is from goo辞書, 2) and 3) are from weblio and 4) is actually the first sentence from this article: 「私の仕事はワナメーカーの謎を解くことです」 ─マリンソフトウェアCMO マット・アックリー氏インタビュー):


1) 彼女は夫の半分のお金をかせぐ。 "She earns half as much money as her husband."

2) 私は貴方の持っているお金の半分しか持っていない。"I only have half of the money that you do."

3) 私はかろうじて半分のお金をあなたに送りました。"I just managed to send half the money to you."

4) 広告に使っているお金の半分は無駄になっている。 (my attempt: ) "Half of the money one spends in ads is wasted".

I'm not sure why either form is preferred. Maybe the default form is 半分のお金 as in 1) and 3), but the word order must be reversed when there's a relative clause modifying お金, as in 2) and 4) ?

Yes, your understanding is correct. 貴方の持っている半分のお金 or 広告に使っている半分のお金 are ambiguous. For instance, the latter one can mean 広告に使っている（何かの）半分のお金 "half of the money of something, which one spends in ads".

I see, thank you! So for example if I decide to spend half of my savings on ads and the other half on construction materials, I could refer to the first half as 広告に使っている半分のお金 (the relative clause modifies the whole chunk 半分のお金) , while 広告に使っているお金の半分 sounds more like 'half of the money I spent on ads', that is, 25% of my savings in my example. Right?

Exactly! You got it perfectly right!!

Nice, thanks!