The Resolving of the Ambiguity

Structural Ambiguities

• Ambiguity deals with coherence and understanding. In our life when we say that something is ambiguous we mean that it is unclear, confusing, or not certain, especially because it can be understood in more than one way. 
• First of all, a more scientific or a more syntactic definition of the term ambiguity/ ambiguous is very enlightening. Haegeman observes that in case of having two groupings of words, suiting in a particular string of words, we deal with the cause of the ambiguity of the string or structural ambiguity, as we need structure and  syntax in order to comprehend the dual meaning of the constituent (9-10). Apart from this, according to Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman and Nina Hyams

[A]mbiguous sentences have more than one phrase structure tree, corresponding to a different meaning. The sentence 

• The boy saw the man with the telescope is ambiguous. 

One meaning of the sentence is “the boy used the telescope to see the man. The first phrase structure tree represents this meaning. The key element is the position of the PP directly under the VP. Although the PP is under VP, it is not a complement because it is not selected by the verb. The verb see selects an NP only. In this sentence, the PP has an adverbial function and modifies the verb. In its other meaning, “the boy saw a man who had a telescope,” the PP with the telescope occurs under the direct object NP, where it modifies the noun man. In its second meaning, the complement of the verb see is the entire NP-the man with the telescope. The PP in the first structure is generated by the rule:

VP→V  NP  PP

In the second structure the PP is generated by the rule:

NP→Det  N  PP

Two interpretations are possible because the rules of syntax permit different structures for the same linear order of words (143-4).

Another example could be the following: 150 black cab drivers. The particular NP is

ambiguous because it can be interpreted in three different ways.

1. 150[[black cab] drivers]
2. 150[black [cab drivers]]
3. 150 drivers of [black cabs]

Also, a tall rose grower can have the following double structure:

1. [[Adj.-Noun]-Noun] → a [[tall rose]grower]
2. [Adj.-[Noun-Noun]] → a [tall[rose grower]]

• Another major issue, related to structural ambiguity is Discontinuous Dependences. This means that we can have a sentence which does not seem to be ambiguous, but contains participles or phrasal verbs. The position of the participle within the sentence could be considered as a cause of ambiguity, as various interpretations are possible (Corpus 50-510). The following instances will help us understand this case better.

 1. Mary stood up her date.     Vs. Mary stood her date up. 

Also, the issue of discontinuous dependency is associated with modifiers.

2. Several people who were wearing hats came in Vs.

Several people came in who were wearing hats.

In this case the modifying clause provides information about the head noun (example 1) or the head noun indicates information for the clause, as in this case its position is in the end of the sentence. (example 2)

In addition to this, structural ambiguity is associated with Thematic Roles: “Some constituents of the sentence are inherently required by the meaning of the verb. It is as if each verb sets the scene for some kind of situation: the verb requires a number of entities that will be involved in the situation. The participants in the situation are called the arguments of the verb” (Haegeman 192). Also, Haegeman states that the Agent, the one intentionally initiates the action, is the subject, and the Theme, the entity undergoing a change of state, is the direct object. (192) Thus, after having the term, Thematic Roles, I will briefly explain its association with structural ambiguity through a very simple example: Sherlock saw the man using binoculars. The interpretations of the example are the following: a) Sherlock used the binoculars to see the man b) A man was using binoculars, and Sherlock saw him. Sherlock, denotes a particular person, man denotes a set-the set of man, the denotes a function that takes a set as its argument, saw denotes a function that takes a person/ thing as argument and yields a set and using binoculars denotes the set of people who were using this object. (Stephenson 3) Lastly, Stephenson argues that “constituent structure reflects semantic composition [the and man combine together first before combining with saw and also that] there are three ways that meanings are put together: a function applies to an argument, two sets are intersected, check weather something is a member of that set” (3).

• Furthermore, ambiguity could be also defined as Scope Ambiguity “a type of confusing ambiguity characterized by confusion over the role a word plays in the sentence. Example: Prostitutes appeal to Pope. There is some debate over whether Scope Ambiguity represents a unique type of ambiguity or whether it belongs to Syntactic Ambiguity or Lexical Semantic Ambiguity” <http: //everything2com>. Also, another definition concerning ambiguity is Grouping Ambiguity: “[…] a type of syntactic ambiguity that is ambiguous because it is unclear whether a modifier in a sentence modifies only one or several objects. Example: Hand on me the red and the yellow balls. (Hand me the red ball and the yellow ball, Hand me the balls that are red and yellow” <http: //everything2com>.
• Structural ambiguity has a strong impact on literature in terms of syntactic analysis; this means that while reading a book we may be unable to interpret author’s implement properly. We can transport this difficulty and attach it on the level of linguistics and particularly syntax. According to Kimball and Frazier the structure based ambiguity consists of two categories: “Right Association-a constituent tends to attach to another constituent immediately to its right [and] Minimal Attachment- a constituent tends to attach so as to involve the fewest additional syntactic nodes” (Hindle, Rooth 257).