TSLB 3013

TASK 2: PRESENTATION
Group: Aryanna
Sara
Woi Min Xuan
Syntax
- Definition of Syntax
- Rules of syntax
 Definition

﹡ In linguistics, "syntax" refers to the principles that

preside the ways during which words combine to form
sentences, clauses, and clauses. The term is
additionally used to mean the study of the syntactic
properties of a language.
﹡ Syntax is the theory that allows people to understand
how to start a question with a question word ("What is
that?"), or that adjectives generally precede the nouns
they describe ("blue car"), subjects often precede
verbs in non-question sentences ("He juggled"),
prepositional phrases start with prepositions ("to the
mall"), helping verbs precede main verbs ("can go" or
"will do"), and so on.
﹡ According to Blakeley (2018), Syntax is the area of
linguistics that studies the structure and formation of
sentences. It explains how words and phrases are
arranged to create correct sentences. A sentence
could make no sense and still be correct from the
syntax point of regard as long as words are in their
appropriate spots and agree with one other.
 Rules of Syntax in Linguistics

﹡ English language often follow ordering patterns in

clauses and sentences. For instance, compound
sentences are joined by conjunctions (and, but, or) or
that multiple adjectives modifying the identical noun
follow a selected order as per to their class (such as
number-size-color, as in "six small green chairs"). The
rules of how to order words help the language parts
make sense. This is because sentences have a certain
structure.
﹡ There is a fixed specific order of word categories,
rather than a fixed order for particular words
themselves. It is important to make a distinction
between grammar and syntax, and to realize that
syntax is a component of grammar.
﹡ Following proper syntax does not mean that a
sentence will make sense, though. Linguist Chomsky
created the sentence "Colorless green ideas sleep
furiously," which is both syntactically and
grammatically correct because it has the words in the
correct order and verbs that agree with subjects, but it
is still nonsense. With it, Chomsky showed that rules
governing syntax are distinct from meanings that
words convey.
Ambiguity
- Definition of Ambiguity
- Syntactical Ambiguity
 Definition
﹡ Ambiguity is a concept or situation which can be
understood in more than one way. Ambiguity is
analogous to “vagueness,” except vagueness refers to
a general lack of clarity; something vague may not have
any clear meanings while something ambiguous might
need several possible clear meanings, while that
ambiguity refers to something having multiple possible
meanings.
 Syntactical Ambiguity
﹡ In English grammar, syntactic ambiguity is the
appearance of two or more possible meanings within
one sentence or sequence of words, as averse to
lexical ambiguity, which is the presence of two or more
possible meanings within a single word. The context of
its use can be determined by the intended meaning of a
syntactically ambiguous phrase. Syntactical ambiguity
is a grammatical construct, and occurs from the
difficulty of applying universal grammatical laws to
sentence structure.
﹡ An example of syntactical
ambiguity is "Bob hit the
﹡ Comparing the phrase
person with the pole".
"Bob hit the person with
This phrasing is unclear
the pole" to the analogous
as to whether the person
"Bob hit the person with
was hit with a pole, or
the tattoo" provides some
whether the person with a
insights. As a tattoo is
pole was struck by Bob.
often associated with
The context can
violent tendencies, the
substantially reduce
second sentence clearly
syntactical ambiguity. For
conveys that the person
instance, knowing that
with the tattoo was struck
either Bob, or the person,
by Bob
but not both, had a pole
resolves the syntactical
ambiguity.
﹡ Syntactic ambiguity generally results from the poor
usage of words. If thought isn’t considered when
selecting phrases that could be taken in a connotative
rather than a denotative context may have over one
meaning, or if the sentences during which they're used
are not properly constructed, the results can often be
mistaken by readers or listeners.
 Ambiguity in
Communication
- Consequences of Ambiguity in Communication
- Resolution of Ambiguity
 Consequences of Ambiguity in Communication

﹡ Ambiguity can negatively affect the response or the

feedback to the message communicated and received.
This may usually be the case where the reader or
listener decides to take for granted one of the meanings
of the ambiguous expressions communicated to them.

﹡ If they unfortunately take a wrong meaning or

interpretation for granted then this will likely affect their
response to the communicated message. The feedback
will be negative or contrary to the expected. As an
example, attached below is a picture depicting a
message addressed to the players on a golf course.
﹡ This message’s true intent is to warn
others of social distancing, and to
reduce risk of contamination; therefore,
the administrators had issued a
reminder to not touch other players golf-
balls.
﹡ However, if the players in question
misinterpreted the notice, there will be a
negative response as most will see the
notice as vulgar with inappropriate
connotations, and this is serious in
communication because the response
or feedback is a most vital parameter
utilized in measuring the effectiveness
in communication.
 Resolution of Ambiguity in Communication

﹡ Ambiguities in language are usually resolved with the

proper use of relevant prosodic features like stress,
tone, intonation and pause; hence, such disambiguation
becomes less problematic because those prosodic
features or elements when properly used can easily
make the intended meaning known. But unfortunately,
in written communication it is significantly harder to
represent.
﹡ Ambiguity in written communication can also be
resolved by specifying the intended constituents’
structure of such a sentence or expression and thereby
preventing misinterpretation. This could be done by
employing a technique called hyphenation. As the
name suggests, this method involves the utilization of a
hyphen (-), which is one of the more common
punctuation marks that is specially used in the
formation of compound lexical items especially in
compound nouns. This method can be used to resolve
the ambiguity of the expression “other players balls”
then can be properly hyphenated as “other players golf-
balls”.
﹡ Proper punctuation of grammatical strings using
commas can also help to prevent and resolve cases of
double or multiple semantic interpretations. Sherman
and Johnson (1983) discerned that the key function of
punctuation is to make written communication clearer
and easy to read.
 Conclusion
﹡ As future teachers, we should all strive to be good
communicators, therefore we must know how to avoid
ambiguity at all times. This is because ambiguity, due to
its tendency to contain multiple interpretations may
prove a hindrance to proper comprehension, an
obstacle in getting the desired response and an
impediment to the attainment of the communicator’s
target goal. As a result, we should strive to understand
the possible causes of ambiguity, the consequences of
ambiguity, also the application of corresponding
disambiguation techniques to resolve such ambiguity,
and ultimately attain semantic clarity which
tremendously important in effective communication.
Thank You!