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.

Exercises from the platform English Language and Linguistics Online (ELLO):

• Ambiguous verb phrases: https://www.ello.uos.de/field.php/Syntax/AmbiguousVPs
• Ambiguous noun phrases:

• https://www.ello.uos.de/field.php/Syntax/AmbiguousNPs
• https://www.ello.uos.de/field.php/Syntax/AmbiguousDPs

Scope ambiguity

See the glossary entry on scope ambiguity.

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

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.

---

Navigation:

• To the exercise page for chapter 1
• To the material by chapters overview
• To the main page of the textbook