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Term paper: L3, FW 2.1, WiSe 20/21

Types of Ambiguity

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Check for video transcript here:

It is important to understand what kinds of ambiguity exist in natural language because this will help us to determine the grammatical and contextual factors which allow us to communicate without being lost in ambiguity all the time. The following video will explain the five types of ambiguity.

First of all, let’s talk about Lexical ambiguity. Lexical ambiguity occurs when a sentence contains a word that has more than one meaning which can obscure the writer’s intent and confuse the reader. Let’s take, for example, the sentence: “I saw bats.”. This sentence could be interpreted in four different ways. Number one: I used a tool with a sharp blade to slice through baseball bats. Number two: I viewed some nocturnal flying mammals. Number three: I viewed baseball bats. Number four: I used a tool with a sharp blade to slice through nocturnal flying mammals.

Another type of ambiguity is structural ambiguity. Structural ambiguity occurs when the meaning of the component words can be combined in more than one way. In other words: One word order can be associated with two or more different meanings. For example, the sentence: “The chicken is ready to eat.”. This sentence either means the chicken is cooked and can be eaten now, or the chicken is ready to be fed.

Scope ambiguities arise when the scope of a part - or parts - of a sentence is unclear. The scope is an area over which activity, capacity, or influence extends. Quantifiers (words like every), negations, and adverbial or adjectival modifiers often give rise to scope ambiguities. A sentence with a scope ambiguity need not be structurally ambiguous. For example, the sentence: “Every man loves a woman.”. This sentence could either mean: for every man, there is some woman that he loves, or every man loves the same woman.

Collective-distributive ambiguity occurs with sentences containing plural expressions and can give rise to two interpretations, a collective reading and a distributive reading. For example, the sentence: “Two students carried a heavy backpack.”. In the collective reading, this sentence means that the two students carried one heavy backpack together. In the distributive reading, the two students carried each a heavy backpack.

Referential ambiguity occurs when a word or phrase, in the context of a particular sentence, could refer to two or more properties or things. It is sometimes clear from the context which meaning is intended, but not always. For example, the sentence: “John met Bill before he went to school.”. This sentence could either mean John met Bill before John went to school or John met Bill before Bill went to school. Remember the 5 types of ambiguity are lexical, structural, scope, collective-distributive, and referential ambiguity. Thanks for watching!

Structural Ambiguity

Task 1 What is the correct reading for the syntax tree?

	Reading 1: I used a newspaper to hit the fly.
	Reading 2: The fly with the newspaper is what I hit.

Examples

After having watched the video, work on the following tasks.

Task 1 Identify the determiners in the following sentence.

(a) Juliet talked to some stranger at the party.

(b) Every Capulet is an enemy to some Montague.

(c) Many people in Verona are not happy about the Capulet-Montague feud.

Check your solutions here:

(a) some

(b) every, some

(c) many

Task 2 Identify the formula that corresponds to the translation of the sentence.

Some Montague who was at the party fell in love with Juliet.

	∃x (montague1(x) : (at-party1(x) ∧ fall-in-love-with2(x,juliet)))
	∃x ((montague1(x) ∧ at-party1(x)) : fall-in-love-with2(x,juliet))
	∃x (montague1(x) : (at-party1(x) ∧ fall-in-love-with2(x,juliet))
	∃x ((montague1(x) ∧ fall-in-love-with2(x,juliet)) : at-party1(x))

Task 3 The sentence: Some Tybalt loved some Montague. is translated into the formula
∃ y (montague₁(y) : love₂(tybalt,y).

Mark all the cells in the table that stand for a true statement.

montague1(y) zwisch	love2(tybalt,y)zwisch
		Romeo
		Mercutio
		Juliet
		Tybalt
		Laurence
		Paris

Given this table, is the overall formula true or false? (Give a reason for your answer.)

Check your solutions here:

The formula is false, because there is no individual in our model for which both the restrictor and the scope are true.

Determine the part of speech of the words in the sentences.
Use the following part of speech labels: A, Adv, Conj, Comp, Det, N, P, V

a. Alex/ talked/ to/ my/ best/ friend/ .

b. You/ might/ suspect/ that/ Pat/ is/ a/ genius/ .

c. The/ title/ of/ a/ book/ largely/ determines/ whether/ it/ will/ be/ successful/ or/ a/ flop/ .

Indicate the missing values of the VAL and the HEAD features using tags ([1], ...) or "-" for empty lists.

Alex snored.

syntactic structure:

Words:                                                                                                   Phrase:

Alex                                                             snored                                    S: Alex snored.

HEAD [4]noun                                  HEAD [5]verb                                    HEAD

SUBJ < >                                  SUBJ < >                                    SUBJ < >

SPR   < >                                  SPR < >                                     SPR < >

COMPS < >                              COMPS < >                               COMPS < >

Feel free to send feedback on this exercise to Manfred Sailer.