SEMANTICS 3 Ambiguity FIVE TYPES OF AMBIGUITY In
SEMANTICS 3 Ambiguity?
FIVE TYPES OF AMBIGUITY In Semantics, Ambiguity refers to a structure, word, or phrase that has multiple possible meanings. Ambiguity is not vagueness, or having unspecified meaning. Humor and poetry often use ambiguity as a tool. There is lexical, structural, referential, scope, and pragmatic ambiguity.
LEXICAL AMBIGUITY Caused by homonyms or polysemes. Having difficulty telling the difference between these? Remember that Homonyms are semantically unrelated, and also etymologically unrelated. However, polysemes have some relationship, often metaphor or metonym. Which is the word “help” as shown in the comic?
Porcelain egg container: STRUCTURAL AMBIGUITY
STRUCTURAL AMBIGUITY Structural ambiguity is caused by several potential syntactical structures particularly involving gerunds, conjunctions, prepositional phrases, and adverbials. Flying planes can be dangerous. I once shot an elephant in my pajamas.
REFERENTIAL AMBIGUITY Referential ambiguity can happen when there can be more than one possible target for the noun phrase. It can happen particularly with pronouns (which can also be noun phrases). I’m going to see my girl friend/I’m going to see my girlfriend. He drove the car over the hedgehog, but it wasn’t hurt. Sally took Susan to lunch. She looked sad.
SCOPE AMBIGUITY A structural ambiguity arising from the use of quantifiers in a way that could have multiple numbers involved. Every student likes a book. Does this mean that every student likes the same (one) book, or every student likes one (different) book each? Three students shot four professors.
(PRAGMATIC AMBIGUITY) Arises when language is put to use in different contexts. I’ve got big plans for you. (A threat, a promise, a hopeful statement? ) Nice haircut. He has a great personality.
VAGUENESS Whereas ambiguity forces us to choose one of several possible meanings, in vagueness the context can add or clarify the meaning of the expression. He’s pretty tall (How tall? What’s the comparison? ) Linda’s car is going really fast! (Is Linda the owner or just the driver? ) I went home. (How did I go? By train? By car? ) Identity Test (“and so did X”—if the other person also did the same thing as the first, it’s a case of ambiguity—multiple meanings, not vagueness) Mary visited the bank AND SO DID LINDA Mary adopted a child AND SO DID LINDA Truth Condition Test (If you can answer both yes AND no to a question involving the statement it is ambiguity and not vagueness) Did Mary visit the bank? Did Mary adopt a child?
REVIEW Identify the type of ambiguity (lexical, structural, referential, scope, pragmatic), or if it is instead vague: I’d love to go out to dinner with you an see a play, but I can’t afford it. That cup has a chip in it. That’s a big house. Everyone loves someone. I punched a dude with brass knuckles.
- Slides: 10