语言学歧义句

⑺ambiguity—refers to the linguistic phenomena that constituents of the sentence have more than one lexical/grammatical interpretations.

Eg,①We saw her duck. She has a duck/ she was ducking

②你在做什么？What are you doing? / what is your job?

①这个人谁也不认识？Nobody knows this person. / this person knows nobody

②她是去年生的小孩。She was the child born last year. / she gave birth to a baby last year.

A. lexical ambiguity

→refers to the ambiguity which is caused by the different interpretation of a certain word in a sentence.

Eg, ①He is looking for glasses.

He is looking for spectacles./vessels made of glass used for drinking liquid

②She was seated by the general manager.

She was offered a seat by the gentle man./ she was seated by the side of/ give a place

③The rest of the police is insufficient.

The remaining police is / the relaxation

The causes of lexical ambiguity are:

a)polysemy

①The criminal lawyer is coming.

The lawyer who committed crime/ defends for the criminal

②Mr. Smith is going to marry Jane at the church.

b)homonymy

①The boy was attracted by the ball/ball.

②Show me your table./table. Desk/ chart

c)differences between American English and British English

eg, He lives on the second floor.

B. grammatical ambiguity

→which is caused by the different interpretation of the syntactic structure of the sentence.

Eg, ①The fat manager`s wife is fond of pretty clothes.

②The policeman hit the man with a stick.

③She gave her baby pictures.

→a)She gave some pictures to her baby.

b) She gave her some pictures drawn for baby.

c) She gave her some pictures of baby.

d) She gave her some pictures drawn by baby.

Some types of grammatical ambiguity

1) prepositional phrase

eg, ①John wrote a poem on a tombstone.

②John telephoned Mary in hospital.

2)pronoun

eg, ①John said to Bill that he had seen the woman before .

②The parents of the girls were ashamed of their conducts.

3)modal verbs

eg. He may come into the room in five minutes.

4)attributive

eg, ①He used to live in a big brick house at in front of the hill.

②There is also a theatre near the business center which was crowded every night.

5)Object and its relevant elements

eg, ①They called Susan a waitress.

→ask a waitress to serve Susan / they said Susan was a waitress /they phoned Susan who was a waitress.

②We found John an experienced doctor.

6)Adverbial

eg, ①The students will discuss their plan to hold a party in the classroom.

②The manager promised to give a bonus to each employee later.

the manager promised to give a bonus to each employee at a time in the future/ the manager later promised to

7)non-infinitive verbal phrase

eg, ①I caught the boy smoking a cigarette.

②The dancing girl in the hall used to be his girlfriend.

③The dog is too hot to eat.

1)`s genitive case

eg, ①We were deeply moved by the woman`s story.

②Jane`s loss has nothing to do with me.

2)Clause

Eg, ①Tell me if you have time.

②Mary asked the man who is smoking by the door.

3)Negative word

Eg, ①She was not listening all the time.

②He did not leave home because he was afraid of his wife.