Determine the type of ambiguity: Difference between revisions
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# Determine the type of the ambiguity and | # Determine the type of the ambiguity and | ||
# determine which element in the sentence causes the ambiguity. | # determine which element in the sentence causes the ambiguity. | ||
Choose the right option | Choose the right option. | ||
(1) Pat didn't know a guest at the party. | <quiz display=simple> | ||
{ (1) ''Pat didn't know a guest at the party.'' <br /> <br /> | |||
Determine the type of the ambiguity | |||
| typ="()" } | |||
- lexical | |||
||Of course, you could argue that the name Pat could either refer to a female person (short for Patricia) or a male person (short for Patrick). In this sense, it would be a lexical ambiguity. However, we are after a different type of ambiguity here. | |||
:: | - structural | ||
:: | ||You might argue that the preposition phrase at the party could attach to the noun guest, to the verb phrase know a guest, or to the entire sentence. In each case, the truth conditions of the sentence are the same. | ||
+ scope | |||
||This is a scope ambiguity. | |||
||The two readings are:<br /> | |||
||Reading 1: Not > Some<br /> | |||
||''Pat knew no guest at the party.''<br /> | |||
||More formally: ''It is not the case that there was a guest at the party that Pat knew.''<br /> | |||
||In this reading the negation has scope over the indefinite ''a guest''.<br /> | |||
||Reading 2: Some > Not<br /> | |||
||''There was one guest at the party Pat didn't know.''<br /> | |||
||More formally: ''There was a guest at that party such that it is not the case that Pat knew this guest.''<br /> | |||
||In this reading the indefinite ''a guest'' has scope over the negation.<br /> | |||
||Follow the link to get more [[Types of ambiguity|explanations]] | |||
- collective-distributive | |||
||For such an ambiguity to arise, we typically need at least one plural entity. | |||
{ Determine which element in the sentence causes the ambiguity. | |||
: | | typ="()" } | ||
- the word ''know'' | |||
||Check again which type of ambiguity we have in this sentence. This may help you to answer this question, too. You can also consult the page with the [[Types of ambiguity|explanations]]. | |||
||Of course, the word ''know'' is highly ambiguous: To mention just one example, there are cases of structural ambiguity which are caused by different complementation possibilities of the word ''know''. One example would be ''I know what Alex wrote to Chris''. Here the verb know either combines with an embedded interrogative clause or with a free relative, i.e., know either combines with a CP or an NP. This can be disambiguated by adding ''else'' (for the embedded interrogative reading) or ''ever'' (for the free relative). | |||
+ the negation and the indefinite | |||
||The sentence shows a scope ambiguity, so the scope-bearing elements are responsible for the ambiguity. In the sentence, the negation (expressed by ''didn't'') and the indefinite NP (''a guest'') are scope-bearing elements. If a sentence contains two scope-bearing elements, it will usually be scopally ambiguous. | |||
- the preposition ''at'' | |||
||In this example, the preposition ''at'' is used as the head of the location modifier ''at the party''. | |||
||In other examples, the prepositions ''at'' can be responsible for ambiguities. The sentence ''Pat was laughing at the party'', is ambiguous. The preposition ''at'', here, could either be the head of a location modifier, as in our example above, or the head of a complement PP ''at the party''. In this second reading ''at the party'' is the theme of the laughing, not the location of the laughing. | |||
</quiz> | |||
Latest revision as of 10:28, 7 January 2014
Each of the following sentences is ambiguous.
- Determine the type of the ambiguity and
- determine which element in the sentence causes the ambiguity.
Choose the right option.