Types of ambiguity

Ambiguity is widespread in natural language. In most cases, however, we do not even notice the ambiguity in everyday life. However, these ambiguities are real and it is very important to understand what kinds of ambiguity exist in natural language. This will also help us to determine the factors (grammatical and contextual) which allow us to communicate without being lost in ambiguity all the time.

Ambiguity

Lexical ambiguity

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

Lexical ambiguity is defined as words having multiple meanings.

Example: Is life worth living? It depends on the liver.

Here is a short and entertaining podcast that illustrates the phenomenon of lexical ambiguity.

Structural ambiguity

Youtube video showing a scene from the movie Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang containing a structural ambiguity.

Scope ambiguity

See the glossary entry on scope ambiguity.

Here is a short and entertaining podcast that illustrates the phenomenon of lexical ambiguity.

Referential ambiguity

This type of ambiguity arises whenever the refence of an expression is ambiguous. Referential ambiguity emerges systematically whenever pronouns are used. A famous constellation are so-called Winograd Schemas. These are sentences in which the interpretation of a pronoun flips when a single word is exchanged:

• The city councilmen refused the demonstrators a permit because they [feared/advocated] violence.
  

Who [feared/advocated] violence? Answers: The city councilmen/the demonstrators.

• The trophy doesn't fit into the brown suitcase because it's too [small/large].
  

What is too [small/large]? Answers:The suitcase/the trophy.

A collection of 150 English Winograd Schemas can be found at: https://cs.nyu.edu/~davise/papers/WinogradSchemas/WSCollection.html

These constellation show that the reference of the pronoun is ambiguous, in principle, but that this ambiguity is hardly ever noticed.

References and links

Related exercises

• Determine the type of ambiguity

References

• Wasow, Thomas, Amy Perfors and David Beaver (2005): The Puzzle of Ambiguity. In C. Orhan Orgun and Peter Sells (eds): Morphology and The Web of Grammar: Essays in Memory of Steven G. Lapointe. Stanford: CSLI Publications. 265-282.
  Link to the preprint version on Thomas Wasow's homepage: www.stanford.edu/~wasow/Lapointe.pdf (checked April 11, 2013).
• Zwicky, Arnold and Jerrold Sadock (1975): Ambiguity Tests and How to Fail Them. In (Syntax and Semantics, 1975). In John P. Kimball (ed): Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 4. New York: Academic Press. 1-36.
  Link to the preprint version on Arnold Zwicky's homepage: stanford.edu/~zwicky/ambiguity-test-and-how-to-fail-them.pdf (checked April 11, 2013)

Links

• Ernest Davis has put together for a seminar on artificial intelligence
  • some Notes on ambiguity: http://cs.nyu.edu/faculty/davise/ai/ambiguity.html
  • a collection of so-called Winograd schemas: http://www.cs.nyu.edu/faculty/davise/papers/WS.html
• "ambiguity" in Utrecht Institute of Linguistics, Lexicon of Linguistics
• "ambiguity" in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Online version of Kent Bach's entry on ambiguity in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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