Semantic Ambiguity

In linguistics, an expression is semantically ambiguous when it can have multiple meanings.

The higher the amount of synonyms a word has, the higher the degree of ambiguity. Like other
kinds of ambiguity, semantic ambiguities are often clarified by context or by prosody. One's
comprehension of a sentence in which a semantically ambiguous word is used is strongly
influenced by the general structure of the sentence. The language itself is sometimes a
contributing factor in the overall effect of semantic ambiguity, in the sense that the level of
ambiguity in the context can change depending on whether or not a language boundary is crossed

Lexical ambiguity is a subtype of semantic ambiguity where a word or morpheme is ambiguous.

When a lexical ambiguity results from a single word having two senses, it is called polysemy. For
instance, the English "foot" is polysemous since in general it refers to the base of an object, but
can refer more specifically to the foot of a person or the foot of a pot. When an ambiguity instead
results from two separate words which happen to be pronounced the same way, it is called
homonymy. For instance, the English word "row" can denote the action of rowing or to an
arrangement of objects. In practice, polysemy and homonymy can be difficult to distinguish.

Lexical ambiguity occurs in language when someone uses a word that has an unclear meaning
because it could be understood in multiple ways. A term or statement is ambiguous when there is
more than one potential interpretation of it. Lexical refers to the fact that the ambiguity comes
from the word itself, rather than context. Lexical ambiguity can also be called semantic
ambiguity, as semantic is a term used to describe the literal meaning that a word possesses.

Several concepts are similar to lexical ambiguity but important to distinguish. These include the
following:

Structural or syntactic ambiguity occurs when ambiguity is produced by the grammar of a

sentence, rather than the words themselves.

A vague word is one where the meaning is imprecise enough to allow for varying
interpretations. If someone says ''This book costs a large amount,'' the word ''large'' is vague
because different people might have different ideas of what a large amount to pay for a book is,
and there are some prices for which it is unclear if it is large or small. However, this is not
generally considered lexical ambiguity because the meaning of the word itself is clear; it is
simply unclear where the boundary lies between small and large.

Phrases and sentences can also be semantically ambiguous, particularly when there are multiple
ways of semantically combining its subparts. For instance, the English sentence "Everybody isn't
here" is ambiguous between an interpretation where not everybody is here and another
interpretation where nobody is. This ambiguity is an example of scope ambiguity, a phenomenon
widely studied in formal semantics.
While vague claims are unclear because they lack detail or precision, ambiguous claims are
unclear because they are subject to multiple interpretations.

Semantic Ambiguity:

Claims suffer from semantic ambiguity when they contain a word (or words) with multiple
meanings.

Ex: “I don’t like it when my father smokes.”

The word “smokes” has more than one meaning, and the significance

of the sentence changes dramatically depending on which meaning is intended.

How can we remove the semantic ambiguity from this sentence?

Syntactic Ambiguity:

Claims suffer from syntactic ambiguity when multiple possible meanings result from grammar or
sentence structure.

Ex: “Joe experienced severe shortness of breath and chest pain at home while having sex, which
became more unpleasant at the emergency room.”

What became worse at the emergency room—the chest pain and shortness of breath, or the sex?
This sentence’s structure leaves room for either interpretation.

How can we remove the syntactic ambiguity from this sentence?

What kind of ambiguity affects each of the following?

There have been several nights when I did not know the name of the person in the bed next to
me.

I could really go for a little Mexican right now.

You look more like your brother than your father.

I want Al Gore to be the next president of the United States in the worst way.

“Can you make me a sandwich?”

“Abracadabra! You’re a sandwich!”

I’m not a big pancake man my