Exercise General definition of ambiguity

From Lexical Resource Semantics
Jump to navigation Jump to search

The following material is an adapted form of material created by student participants of the project e-Learning Resources for Semantics (e-LRS).
Involved participants: Nicki, Marc M, Leo, Anna Böcher, Lorena

General definition of ambiguity

1 What is an ambiguous word?

a word with only one meaning
a polysemous word
a homophone word

2 What is the technical term for words that have more than one meaning?

scope ambiguity
lexical ambiguity
structural ambiguity

3 Which word is the ambiguous word in the sentence?

a) I bought it without any further inquiry:

b) There is no bank in this town:


4. Think of three sentences in which the word “hot” has different meanings.

Check your solution here

The Oxford dictionary proposes the following six different solutions (according to the dictionary you used other solutions might be possible:

  • This girl is really hot. -> hot = good looking
  • This pepper is really hot. -> hot = extremely spicy
  • This soup is really hot. -> hot = warm
  • That was a really hot debate -> hot = involving much activity
  • Marc is very hot on Hifi. -> hot = very knowledgable, interested in
  • The whole situation was too hot to be handled by us alone -> hot = difficult to deal with

If you want to check if a word has different meanings you can consult a dictionary. A good address is http://oxforddictionaries.com



Navigation

Retrieved from "http:///wiki/index.php?title=Exercise_General_definition_of_ambiguity&oldid=5257"