I read it in a book Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar, which was written by a Canadian sinologist.
The author gave this sentence as the translation of a sentence in ancient Chinese, <Chinese removed>, which I would render into English as "Six months after I was born, I was deserted by the death of my loving father." Yet the author gave a translation "Six months after he gave me birth, I was deserted ..."
I know that sometimes interpretation of ancient Chinese texts can be controversial. I just wonder if the author's version is sound English or merely an attempt to demonstrate his own literal interpretation of the ancient text.
<Chinese removed>,my father died when I was only six months old. It doesn't make sense a dead person deserts someone or something. My English is not good enough to give a better explanation, I just try to be helpful. According to Collins dictionary,
4.
V-T If someone deserts you, they go away and leave you, and no longer help or support you. <Chinese removed>
I used "deserted by the death of" just to keep consistent with the author's style of translation. I know better way of expressing this in English.
I find the authors choose of words laughable and want to find out whether natives speakers feel the same way.