Glossary:Structural Ambiguity

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Structural Ambiguity

/strʌktʃɘrɘl æmbigjʊɘti/

Definition

Structural ambiguity arises if two or more different syntactic structures can be assigned to one phrase. In other words: One word order can be associated with two or more different meanings.

Examples

There are a lot of old men and women around.

Reading 1: There are a lot of men and women around who are all old.
Reading 2: There are a lot of old men and women of any age around.

We need more intelligent administrators

Reading 1: We need a larger number of intelligent administrators.
Reading 2: We need more administrators who are intelligent.

Related terms

References