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Ambiguity: Lexical / Syntactic

Lexical and syntactic ambiguity are the two main types of ambiguity. Lexical ambiguity occurs when a word has multiple meanings, such as homonyms that have the same spelling and sound but different meanings. Syntactic ambiguity occurs when a sentence can have more than one grammatical structure, leading to different interpretations. Both types are commonly used in advertisements and jokes to catch attention. Ambiguity arises from factors like pronoun references, coordinating structures, and preposition usage.

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1K views

Ambiguity: Lexical / Syntactic

Lexical and syntactic ambiguity are the two main types of ambiguity. Lexical ambiguity occurs when a word has multiple meanings, such as homonyms that have the same spelling and sound but different meanings. Syntactic ambiguity occurs when a sentence can have more than one grammatical structure, leading to different interpretations. Both types are commonly used in advertisements and jokes to catch attention. Ambiguity arises from factors like pronoun references, coordinating structures, and preposition usage.

Uploaded by

Ivan Rodrigo
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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AMBIGUITY

Lexical / Syntactic

Prepared by
Rassel Jay M. Gumboc
Aileen Marie F. Pon-an
AMBIGUITY

• Ambiguity is used to describe a word, a phrase or a sentence with


multiple meanings. ( Fromkin, Rodman, Hyams . 2007)
• The word comes from a Latin term which means, "wandering about“
• Other terms used for ambiguity are amphibologia,
amphibolia, and semantic ambiguity. In addition, ambiguity is sometimes
regarded as a fallacy (commonly known as equivocation) in which the
same term is used in more than one way.
LEXICAL AMBIGUITY

• It's also called semantic ambiguity or homonymy.


• Lexical ambiguity refers to difference in meaning. ( Krovets
, Croft, L ambiguity and information retrieval, p.4 , )
• Two types of lexical ambiguity
• Homonyms
• Polysemy
LEXICAL AMBIGUITY

• Homonyms are two or more words that have the same sound or spell
but the meaning is different.(Vocabulary.com,2013).
Example:
• 'Mine is a long and sad tale' said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and
sighing. 'It is a long tail, certainly,' said Alice, looking down with
wonder at the Mouse's tail; 'but why do you call it sad? (Lewis Carroll,
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland).
• Bat (the flying mammal) or (instruments for hitting baseball)
LEXICAL AMBIGUITY

• Polysemy means a (one) word that is used to express different meanings.


The difference between the meanings can be obvious or subtle. ( Homnomy
and Polysemy, p.1).
Example:
Bear - stand or tolerate Man - the human species.
- to give birth - males of the human species.
- adult males of the human species
LEXICAL AMBIGUITY

• Jokes especially verbal ones are relying on lexical more than syntactic
ambiguous jokes.
Example:

'‘Men recommended more clubs for wives.''

(a) an association dedicated to a particular interest or activity


(b) a heavy usually tapering staff especially of wood wielded as a weapon.
To make a humorous response that wives should be beaten.
LEXICAL AMBIGUITY

• '‘Actor sent to jail for not finishing a sentence.''

(a) actor went to jail because he did not finish a word,


(b) is one formally pronounced by a court or judge in a criminal
proceeding and specifying the punishment to be inflected upon the
convicted person.
LEXICAL AMBIGUITY

Iraqi head seeks Arms

the words “head” and “arms” can either refer to the body organs, or
“leader” and “weapons” respectively. Therefore, one can either interpret
the sentence by their face values (body parts), or even as a combination
of the two.
SYNTACTIC AMBIGUITY

• It is also called grammatical or structural ambiguity.


• It is the phenomenon in which the same sequence of words has two or
more meanings that is accounted for by different phrase structure analysis.
(p. 2007, An Introduction to Language)
• It is called structural ambiguity because they are a result of a different
structures.
• Some linguist claims that structural or syntactic ambiguity happens
because of build-up sentences that lack formal signals to clarify their
sentence structure (p.251).
SYNTACTIC AMBIGUITY

• There are some reasons that lead to structural ambiguity.


• 1. The use of pronouns without referring to the reference whether if it is a
person or object
Example:

Nora called her mother yesterday. They talked for two hours.
She said she would come next month.
In this sentence it is not obvious who is going to come next month, the
pronoun (she), may refer to Nora or her mother.
SYNTACTIC AMBIGUITY

I arrived at home and greet my parents. They had been waiting


for me for two hours. It is very complicated.

It is not clear what 'it ' is referring to in the sentence. So, it must be more
illustrated in the sentence.
SYNTACTIC AMBIGUITY
• 2. The use of coordinating structures that links between two or more
elements. Connectors can cause confusion between grammatical classes,
or, in other words, can result in structural ambiguity. ( Taha 1994).
Example:

The doctor examined old men and women at the hospital.

The phrase ''old men and women'' is a structural ambiguity in which


whether the old men and old women are examined by the doctor or the old
men and women of any age.
SYNTACTIC AMBIGUITY
• 3. The use of prepositions which lead to syntactic ambiguity and this is
the most common.
Example:

Sherlock saw the man with binoculars.

(a) Sherlock saw a man and he uses binoculars to see , or


(b) Sherlock saw the man and the man was using the binoculars.
SYNTACTIC AMBIGUITY

The dog saw a man in the park.

(a) The dog was in the park and saw a man, or


(b) The dog saw a man and the man was in the park as in.
SYNTACTIC AMBIGUITY

• 4. Some newspapers use ambiguity to catch the reader's attention.


Example:

'' Country officials to talk rubbish''

The ambiguity here is due to the omission of the preposition (about), and
the sentence is '‘Country officials to talk about rubbish.'', and the
meaning of the headline is '‘Country officials are scheduled to talk about
issues concerning garbage disposal.
AMBIGUITY

• In conclusion, ambiguity is to have multiple meanings. There


are two types of ambiguity, lexical and syntactic. Syntactic
ambiguity deals with structure while lexical ambiguity deals
with words. Both of them are linguistic expressions, and are
usually used in advertisements and jokes.
REFERENCES
• 1 - An Introduction to a language Victoria Frokin Robert Rodman Nina Hyams 9 edition (9th ed.). (n.d.).
• 2- Analyzing Sentence Structure http://nltk.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/doc/book/ch08.html
• 3- BRENDAN S. GILLON (n.d.). AMBIGUITY, GENERALITY, AND INDETERMINACY: TESTS AND
DEFINITIONS*. Retrieved from http://semantics.uchicago.edu/kennedy/classes/s06/readings/gillon90.pdf
• 4- Kent Bach, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry http://online.sfsu.edu/kbach/ambguity.html
• 5 - Liberman ,Mark (n.d.). Language Log. Retrieved April 2009, from
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1380
• 6- MacDonald, Maryellen C, Pearlmutter, Neal J., Seidenberg, & Mark S (1994). The lexical nature of
syntactic ambiguity resolution.
• 7- Mihalcea, & Strapparava (n.d.). Words, Meanings and Emotions. Retrieved from
http://eurolan.info.uaic.ro/html/profs/materials/Mihalcea-Strapparava.pdf
• 8- Nordquist,Richard (2013). Homonyms. Retrieved from
http://grammar.about.com/od/fh/g/homonymterm.htm
• 9-Rothwell (n.d.). Dictionary of Homonyms. Retrieved 2007, from
http://grammar.about.com/od/fh/g/homonymterm.htm

• 10- Robert krovets ,W. Bruce croft, Lexical ambiguity and Information Retrieval, University of massachusett
)

• 11- Syntax with Sherlock - Sentence Ambiguity Illustrated and Diagrammed, 2010
http://walkinthewords.blogspot.com/2010/07/syntax-with-sherlock-sentence-ambiguity.html

• 12- Victor ferreira , L robert slevic , erin s. rogers. How Do Speakers Avoid Ambiguous Linguistic
Expressions?. University of California ,2004 VOCABULARY.COM. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/chooseyourwords/homonym-homophone-homograph/

• 13- Weng, Ellis, & Owens,Andrew (2013). Implicit Relevance Feedback and Syntactic Structure. Retrieved
from http://www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs6740/2010sp/guides/lec16.pdf 16-Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

• https://www.thoughtco.com/ambiguity-language-1692388

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