Structural Ambiguity [PDF]

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University of Imam Ja`afar Al-sadiq/Baghdad College of Arts Department: English Literature Morning Studies Third stage



Subject of report ( Structural Ambiguity) Mohammed Ammar Hashim Dr. Abdul Majeed Hammed



Year (2019/2020)



Introduction In English grammar, syntactic ambiguity (also called structural ambiguity or grammatical ambiguity) is the presence of two or more possible meanings within a single sentence or sequence of words, as opposed to lexical ambiguity, which is the presence of two or more possible meanings within a single word. The intended meaning of a syntactically ambiguous phrase can generally—although not always—be determined by the context of its use. structural ambiguity, where a sentence may be interpreted in more than one way due to ambiguous sentence structure. Syntactic ambiguity arises not from the range of meanings of single words, but from the relationship between the words and clauses of a sentence, and the sentence structure underlying the word order therein. In other words, a sentence is syntactically ambiguous when a reader or listener can reasonably interpret one sentence as having more than one possible structure.



example: - John said that Bill slipped in the kitchen This sentence has two possible meanings; Either John said it in kitchen, or Bill slipped in the kitchen



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Factors of Structural Ambiguity In English 1-Duality of Parts of Speech: Any sentence in English is an arrangement of words as parts of speech. if the listeners or readers do not know the identity of those parts of speech, they will not understand the message being communicated, for example: They are encouraging reports. The word encouraging may be a verb and in this case the sentence would mean : They are encouraging reports. Or it can be an adjectival giving the following meaning: These reports are encouraging.



2- The Immediate Constituent: A sentence or part of a sentence is ambiguous when it carries more than one meaning. Any sentence in English can be divided into immediate constituents hence forth ICs. Dividing a sentence into ICs does not provide much information though sometimes it is clear. In this way the sentence shows ambiguity i.e. a difference in meaning which results from difference in the hierarchical structure of the IC analysis. For example The old men and women. This sentence is ambiguous and the ambiguity is illustrated by paraphrasing it as follows: 1. The old men and women. 2. The old men and the old women. In this case the ambiguity occurs because the constituents of a sentence are not clearly shown and the meaning is not clearly signaled



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3- The Use of Pronouns: The use of pronouns in sentences may sometimes cause ambiguity specifically the personal pronouns. These pronouns are similar to the proper nouns except in one respect; the pronouns should have antecedents. That is, the pronoun he will not occur unless a word like Sam, the boy, my father precedes it. Difficulties arise when the pronoun has more than one possible antecedents, like: Sam told his brother that he was not going to get a typewriter for the Christmas. Here he is preceded by two nouns either of which might be the antecedent. Sam told his brother that he (Sam) was not going to get a typewriter for Christmas. or Sam told his brother that he (his brother) was not going to get a typewriter for Christmas.



4- Surface Structure And Deep Structure: Any sentence when uttered is on the surface structure and this surface structure may hide the presence of two or more deep structures. For example the following sentence may appear to be ambiguous on the surface: I saw her in the street. 3



The phrase in the street goes with "I" in one interpretation and with "her" in another. The two interpretations sound the same i.e. one surface structure with two meanings.



How Ambiguity Leads to Misunderstanding Syntactic ambiguity generally results from poor word choice. If care is not used when selecting phrases that taken in a connotative rather than a denotative context may have more than one meaning, or if the sentences in which they're used are not properly constructed, the results can often be confusing for readers or listeners. Here are some examples:



The professor said on Monday he would give an exam. This sentence means either that it was on Monday that the professor told the class about the exam or that the exam would be given on Monday. The chicken is ready to eat. This sentence either means the chicken is cooked and can be eaten now or the chicken is ready to be fed. The burglar threatened the student with the knife. This sentence either means that a knife-wielding burglar threatened a student or the student a burglar threatened was holding a knife. Visiting relatives can be boring. This sentence either means that the act of visiting one's relatives can lead to boredom or that visiting relatives can sometimes make for less than scintillating company. Using Speech Cues to Decipher Syntactic Ambiguity 4



In "Cognitive Psychology," authors M. Eysenck and M. Keane tell us that some syntactic ambiguity occurs at a "global level," meaning entire sentences can be open to two or more possible interpretations, citing the sentence, "They are cooking apples," as an example. The ambiguity is whether the word "cooking" is being used as an adjective or a verb. If it's an adjective, "they" refers to the apples and "cooking" identifies the type of apples being discussed. If it's a verb, "they" refers to the people who are cooking the apples. The authors go on to say that listeners can figure out which meaning is implied in spoken sentences "by using prosodic cues in the form of stress, intonation, and so on." The example they cite here is the ambiguous sentence: "The old men and women sat on the bench." The men are old, but are the women also old? They explain that if the women sitting on the bench are not elderly, when the word "men" is spoken it will be relatively long in duration, while "the stressed syllable in 'women' will have a steep rise in speech contour." If the women on the bench are also old, these cues will not be present.



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