ASSIGNMENT ON

COMPITUTIONAL LINGUISTICS

TOPIC – AMBIGUITY IN LANGUAGE

Submitted to- Submitted by –

Dr. Amalesh Gope Pinaz Sahnia Ahmed (EGD18002)

Department of EFL Gitashiri Borah (EGL18004)

M.A. in Linguistics Pilina Bala Narzary (EGD18010)

And Endangered Languages Anindita Boruah (EGL18016)

Rimpi Borah (EGL18020)

(Group no. 3)
 CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION.

2. TERM RETROSPECT

 WHAT IS ABIGUITY?

 CAUSES OF AMBIGUITY.

3. TYPES OF AMBIGUITY

 LEXICAL AMBIGUITY.

 STRUCTURAL AMBIGUITY.

 SEMANTIC AMBIGUITY.

4. SIGNIFICANCE OF AMBIGUITY.

5. GARDDEN PATH SENTENCES.

6. RESOLVING AMBIGUITY.

7. COCLUSION.

8. WORKS CITED.
Introduction:

This paper aims at presenting the concept of ambiguity, its various types,
significances and its solutions. It looks at the basic concept of ambiguity in
languages. The study tries to suggest that the general notion through which
ambiguity occurs leads to certain difficulties. Even then ambiguity in a language
can also be an important tool for expression. Thus to work out the intended
meaning of the ambiguity and its areas we have to understand the term in its depth.

One fact about language is that language is use to resolve the purpose of
confusions that arise. Whereas if we look into the depth of languages we can find
out that a language comprises of sentences which are gradually evolved from
words. But these words and sentences which work as a tool for communication are
also misleading. Words and sentences are full of confusions due to their various
scopes of meanings.

TERM RETROSPECT

What is Ambiguity?

In literary terms, ambiguity is “the use of words that allow alternative

interpretations”. In factual explanatory prose, “ambiguity is considered as an error
in reasoning or diction, in literary prose or poetry”. Thus ambiguity in a sentence
means that we can get several interpretations of the same sentence. In other words,
it is an attribute of a word or sentence whose meaning can be interpreted in more
than one way.
Ambiguity is derived from the Latin 'ambiguus' which means 'doubtful’.
Ambiguity is a term which defines a word or a statement which “expresses more
than one meaning” (Crystal, 2008 p.22). This is the reason why an ambiguous
expression can be interpreted in many ways.

Causes of Ambiguity:

There are various causes of ambiguity in a language.

1. There are words that have different meaning but their forms are identical.
These types of words are called homonymous words.
 For example – The word ‘Bank’ might at times means any
commercial bank or at times might mean river side area. Even though
the words using in various context have the same form the meaning
differs.

2. There are words that share identical sound but have different meanings.
These words are called Homophones words.

 For example – the words ‘sit’ and ‘seat’ have different meanings and
different forms but identical sounds.

Types of Ambiguity:

1. Lexical ambiguity:

Lexical ambiguity refers to the lexical item of a particular language in which the
particular word or item may have more than one meaning. There is an inherent
property in lexical ambiguity. Lexical ambiguity can be understood when put into
the context.

For instance,
 The word 'bright' can mean ' bright student' or 'bright sunny day'. Thus it
becomes difficult to infer when the context is not given.
 The word ‘bat’ means ‘an animal’ or ‘a wooden instrument for playing
cricket.’

David Crystal defines lexical ambiguity as a 'type of ambiguity that arises when a
word has more than one general meaning'.

2. Structural Ambiguity:

Structural Ambiguity is also known as Syntactic Ambiguity. Structural Ambiguity

is seen when there are two or more possible meanings within a single sentence. A
sentence maybe interpreted in more than one way due to ambiguous sentence
structure.

 For example: ‘The old man and women walked through the garden.’ This
sentence can have two syntactic form as ‘the old [man and women]’ or ‘the
[old man] and women.’
3. Semantic Ambiguity:

The semantic ambiguity takes place even after the syntactic and lexical ambiguity
is being solved. It is because when we read a sentence there are two possible ways
of reading a sentence. A word in a sentence can either be referent or can also be a
denotation.
For instance,

 In the sentence ‘A mouse gets into the room’, if we consider the noun phrase
‘a mouse’ and ‘the room’ will be referent. It will refer to the things in the
world. Whereas the nouns ‘mouse’ and ‘room’ it will act as a denotation of
certain classes of items. Therefore it becomes difficult for us to get the exact
meaning of the sentence.
 ‘Priya and Rahul are engaged.’ When we consider this sentence we find it
difficult to understand whether Priya and Rahul are engaged together or they
are being engaged separately.
 ‘Bicky slapped his son, and so did Prath.’ Here in this sentence the
ambiguity occurs when we try to understand whether Prath slapped Bicky’s
son or his own.

Significance of Ambiguity:

The ambiguity of words and sentences not only produce limitations in the
cognitive minds of human beings. Ambiguity is also use to expand the scope of
knowledge. It creates situation where an individual tend to analyze the reason
behind the use of ambiguity of a particular context.

In various works, authors seem to use ambiguous words and sentences

intentionally. In order to allow a reader of the hearer to make their own
interpretations authors use ambiguity as a powerful tool. This is because
interpretations differ from individuals to individuals.

 For instance, if we consider an example from the modern concept of film

making the film at times end with ambiguous dialogue or situation. This
 provides the viewers the freedom to analyze to possible outcomes on their
own. One might interpret a story positively, on the other hand one might
find out every negative possibility of the story. It depends upon the
psychology of individuals.

Another significance of ambiguity that we can observe in our daily life is the use
of ambiguity in politics. Politicians often use ambiguity as strong equipment.

 For instance, a politician while delivering his speech might add an

ambiguous sentence such as ‘I would take my position as a Machiavellian
hero. ‘The sentence might mean he will rule with brains or might mean he
will rule on his own. The ambiguity is also used in order to hide the
underlying meaning.

Garden path sentences:

Garden path sentences are those which are grammatically correct. But when we
take a first look over a sentence it seems to be incorrect due to arrangement of
words in the sentence. Due to its complexity of agreement is causes semantic and
structural ambiguity.

A speaker usually produces garden path sentences to express a kind of complex

situation or to challenge the hearer’s ability of interpretation and ability to furnish
the provided sentence. A garden path sentence is a sentence “that ends with an
interpretation that differs from the interpretation that the reader or the listener
initially expected” (Lee et al., 2012).While experiencing this one might end up
being in garden path, which is linguistically incorrect or mistaken.
The ambiguity is garden path sentences however appear only as a temporary
ambiguity which a reader or a hearer needs to resolve.

 Arguments to what leads out down the garden path in analyzing a sentence-

As most of the sentences occur in active and not passive we tend to mislead the
roles of agent and patient. They interpret that sentence’s initial phrase will always
be a doer of the action and not the recipient.

the reader or thee hearer at first tries to assume a particular meaning of a sentence
but later finds out that the interpretation is incorrect. In other words, the reader has
to rad the sentence again and again.

There are examples of garden path sentences with the possible way to resolve
them:

For example:

 ‘Fat people eat accumulates.’ This sentence can be resolve when we read the
sentence again as:

‘(The) fat (that) people eat (gets) accumulates (in their bodies).’

Otherwise, the sentence seems to be ambiguous.

 ‘Rahul sketched the table with cracks.’ This sentence can be resolve when
read as:

‘Rahul sketched the table (that was covered) with cracks.

Thus, the misinterpretation of garden path sentences can mark chiefly to the kind
of sentence structure and sentence meaning.
Resolving Ambiguity:

Problems arise every time are try to analyze a word or a sentence. It is due to the
ambiguity or words and phrases. This problem can be limited to a certain extent
with some possible ways. Two possible ways through which we can resolve the
ambiguity of words and sentences to a certain extent include WordNet and
Context.

1. WordNet: WordNet in English language can be used as a set of lexical

index. The index consists of English words with their synonyms and group
of synonyms known as synsets. It also provides every possible meanings of
a word in terms of its categories. This helps us to find out the required
meaning of a word in a sentence according to the context. However the
context is again important to take the possible meaning of a word. WordNet
can thus be seen as a combination of dictionary and thesaurus. Therefore,
WordNet can be used as a dictionary or thesaurus.
 For instance, if we type the word ‘break’ we will get all the possible
meaning in terms of different categories.

2. Context:

While resolving the problem of ambiguity one of the very important points to
remember is the context. This is the simplest way of resolving ambiguity of words
and sentences. When an individual can analyze the word according to the context
in which it is being used the ambiguity can be resolved.
  For instance, the word ‘Bank’ when one says ‘I have deposited my cash in
the bank.’ And ‘I find peace near the bank.’ We know the first sentence
refers to commercial bank and the second refers to the river bank. Thus, the
ambiguity is being solved.

Conclusion:

The paper thus compiles ambiguity in its depth. This deliberation manifests
ambiguity as a powerful tool in the use of language. In this work of resolution
ambiguity and its various scopes can be understood more precisely. Therefore, if
we are able to deal with ambiguities we can develop our creativity level. We can
open our minds to new idea.

WORKS CITED

Saeed, I. John. Semantic. Third Edition: Willey Blackwell.

Beauvoir, De.Simone. 1948. The Ethics of Ambiguity. United States of America:

Kensington Publishing Crop.

Qureshi Rozina, http://www.academia.edu/6298141/Seven_Types_of_Ambiguity.

https://www.123helpme.com/search.asp?text=ambiguity

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/
309033841_Lexical_Sources_of_Ambiguity_in_English_and_Daily_Communicati
on

David R. Dowry, Robert E. Wail, and Stanley Peters. Introduction to Montague

Grammar. Reidel Publishing Company, 1981.

Crystal, D. 1996. The Cambridge encyclopedia of language. UK: Cambridge

University Press.

Crystal, D.2008. A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics. (6th ed.) Oxford:

Blackwell.