Ambiguity

Ambiguity

Ambiguity is a type of uncertainty of meaning in which several interpretations are plausible. It is thus an attribute of any idea or statement whose intended meaning cannot be definitively resolved according to a rule or process with a finite number of steps. (The ambi- part of the name reflects an idea of "two" as in two meanings.)

Ambiguity is the presence of two or more possible meanings in a single passage. Adjective: ambiguous.

Linguistic ambiguity can be a problem in law, because the interpretation of written documents and oral agreements is often of paramount importance.

In addition, ambiguity is sometimes regarded as a fallacy (commonly known as equivocation) in which the same term is used in more than one way. 

The concept of ambiguity is generally contrasted with vagueness. In ambiguity, specific and distinct interpretations are permitted (although some may not be immediately apparent), whereas with information that is vague, it is difficult to form any interpretation at the desired level of specificity.

The lexical ambiguity of a word or phrase pertains to its having more than one meaning in the language to which the word belongs. "Meaning" here refers to whatever should be captured by a good dictionary. For instance, the word "bank" has several distinct lexical definitions, including "financial institution" and "edge of a river". Another example is as in "apothecary". One could say "I bought herbs from the apothecary". This could mean one actually spoke to the apothecary (pharmacist) or went to the apothecary (pharmacy).

The context in which an ambiguous word is used often makes it evident which of the meanings is intended. If, for instance, someone says "I buried $100 in the bank", most people would not think someone used a shovel to dig in the mud. However, some linguistic contexts do not provide sufficient information to disambiguate a used word.

TYPES OF AMBIGUITY

1.   Lexical Ambiguity

Lexical ambiguity can be addressed by algorithmic methods that automatically associate the appropriate meaning with a word in context, a task referred to as word sense disambiguation.

According to the editors of the MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences (2001), "True lexical ambiguity is typically distinguished from polysemy (e.g., 'the N.Y. Times' as in this morning's edition of the newspaper versus the company that publishes the newspaper) or from vagueness (e.g., 'cut' as in 'cut the lawn' or 'cut the cloth'), though the boundaries can be fuzzy."

Lexical ambiguity is the presence of two or more possible meanings within a single word. Also called semantic ambiguity or homonymy. Compare to syntactic ambiguity.

Lexical ambiguity is sometimes used deliberately to create puns and other types of word play.

The use of multi-defined words requires the author or speaker to clarify their context, and sometimes elaborate on their specific intended meaning (in which case, a less ambiguous term should have been used). The goal of clear concise communication is that the receiver(s) have no misunderstanding about what was meant to be conveyed. An exception to this could include a politician whose "weasel words" and obfuscation are necessary to gain support from multiple constituents with mutually exclusive conflicting desires from their candidate of choice. Ambiguity is a powerful tool of political science.

More problematic are words whose senses express closely related concepts. "Good", for example, can mean "useful" or "functional" (That's a good hammer), "exemplary" (She's a good student), "pleasing" (This is good soup), "moral" (a good person versus the lesson to be learned from a story), "righteous", etc. " I have a good daughter" is not clear about which sense is intended. The various ways to apply prefixes and suffixes can also create ambiguity ("unlockable" can mean "capable of being unlocked" or "impossible to lock").

Lexical ambiguity is concerned with multiple interpretations of lexemes. A word is ambiguous if it involves two lexical items that have identical forms, but have distinct, i.e. unrelated meanings. There are numerous examples of lexical ambiguity. A clear-cut one is the lexeme ball. This word may either denote the round object which is used for several sports, like football, volleyball or basketball, or it can be used to refer to a large formal dancing party. Both forms are identically written and pronounced but just accidentally share the same form: ball in the sense of the round object originates in the Old Norse word ‘ballr’, whereas ball as the formal event comes from Greek ‘ballizar’ (meaning ‘to dance’) and was first attested in the English language in the 1630s being introduced through Old French. (Online Etymological Dictionary) Another example by Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet (1993) is the following sentence: You should have seen the bull we got from the Pope. The sentence is ambiguous, because the word bull may stand for several distinct things – either a male animal of different kinds, a swearword or an official order or statement from the Pope. As ambiguity is context dependent lexical disambiguation (knowing which word meaning has been used) is quite easy in most cases when considering previous expectations and context (p. 32).

The most classical example of lexical ambiguity is bank, which may either denote an organization providing financial services, or the side of a river – just to mention two of the lexeme’s possible meanings.

Further examples of lexical ambiguity are:

bright - a bright (intelligent) person vs. bright (sunny) weather

file - arranged collection of papers vs. metal tool

Demonstrations of words which have multiple meanings dependent on context.

• In port, the portly porter ported the port, through the port port. (At the dock, the fat mover moved the wine, through the left window)
• Will, will Will will Will Will's will?^[1]
• Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana
• Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. (Buffaloes from Buffalo, NY, whom buffaloes from Buffalo bully, bully buffaloes from Buffalo.)
• Rose rose to put rose roes on her rows of roses. (Robert J. Baran) (Rose [a person] rose [stood] to put rose [pink-colored] roes [fish eggs as fertilizer] on her rows of roses [flower].)
• James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher^[2] (With punctuation: "James, while John had had 'had', had had 'had had'. 'Had had' had had a better effect on the teacher".)
• That that is is that that is not is not is that it it is (Grammatically corrected as: "That that is, is. That that is not, is not. Is that it? It is").
• If it is it, it is it. If it is, it is it, it is! (If an object is the object, it is the object. If it is the object, then it is the object, it is!)
• A ship-shipping ship shipping shipping ships (A boat-delivering boat delivering delivery boats)
• He jarred ajar a jar of Jar-Jar's jarred charred chard and char giardiniera.
• That that exists exists in that that that that exists exists in.
• Better betters better betters better better better better betters better.
• Can can can can can can can can can can. ("Examples of the can-can dance that other examples of the same dance are able to outshine, or figuratively to put into the trashcan, are themselves able to outshine examples of the same dance". It could alternatively be interpreted as a question, "Is it possible for examples of the dance that have been outshone to outshine others?" or several other ways.)
• If police police police police, who police police police? Police police police police police police.^[3] (If the police police is what you might call the people who supervise, monitor, and maintain order amongst the regular police force, then who, in turn, supervises the police police? The answer: the police police police. Hyphenating the noun constructs makes this easier to follow. Therefore, "[The] police-police [, that the] police-police-police police [, themselves] police [the] police", which means that "the police-police, who are policed by the police-police-police, are themselves responsible for policing the regular police force". In these sentences, the word police is used both as a collective noun ("police force") and as a verb ("to police [someone or something]"). This clause is also a reduced relative clause, so the word that, which could appear between the second and third words of the sentence, is omitted.)
• In a similar vein, Martin Gardner offered the example: "Wouldn't the sentence 'I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign' have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?"

2.  Syntactic Ambiguity

In grammar, syntactic ambiguity is the presence of two or more possible meanings within a single sentence or sequence of words. Also called grammatical ambiguity. Compare with lexical ambiguity.

The intended meaning of a syntactically ambiguous sentence can often (but not always) be determined by context.

Syntactic ambiguity arises when a sentence can have two (or more) different meanings because of the structure of the sentence—its syntax. This is often due to a modifying expression, such as a prepositional phrase, the application of which is unclear. "He ate the cookies on the couch", for example, could mean that he ate those cookies that were on the couch (as opposed to those that were on the table), or it could mean that he was sitting on the couch when he ate the cookies. "To get in, you will need an entrance fee of $10 or your voucher and your drivers' license." This could mean that you need EITHER ten dollars OR BOTH your voucher and your license. Or it could mean that you need your license AND you need EITHER ten dollars OR a voucher. Only rewriting the sentence, or placing appropriate punctuation can resolve a syntactic ambiguity.^[2] For the notion of, and theoretic results about, syntactic ambiguity in artificial, formal languages (such as computer programming languages), see Ambiguous grammar.

Spoken language can contain many more types of ambiguities which are called phonological ambiguities, where there is more than one way to compose a set of sounds into words. For example, "ice cream" and "I scream". Such ambiguity is generally resolved according to the context. A mishearing of such, based on incorrectly resolved ambiguity, is called a mondegreen.

Demonstrations of ambiguity between alternative syntactic structures underlying a sentence.

• I saw the man with the binoculars.
• They are hunting dogs.
• Free whales.
• Police help dog bite victim.
• He saw that gas can explode.
• Turn right here.
• We saw her duck.^[5]
• One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know.^[6]
• Ship sails tomorrow.
• Book stays in London.
• Wanted: a nurse for a baby about twenty years old.
• The girl in the car that needed water is waiting.
• "Now I see," said the blind carpenter as he picked up his hammer and saw.
• Those prosecutors have been trying to lock him up for ten years.
• Flying planes can be dangerous.
• I once saw a deer riding my bicycle.
• Look at the dog with one eye.

3.  Structural Ambiguity

Structural ambiguity is a result of two or more different syntactic structures that can be attributed to one string of words. That means that a sentence is structurally ambiguous not because it contains a single lexeme that has several distinct meanings, but because the syntactic structure of the sentence causes multiple interpretations. 

·         Young boys and girls love the adventure playground.

This sentence is syntactically ambiguous, because the reference of young is unclear. There are two possible interpretations of the subject. It may either be that [young boys] and girls love the adventure playground, or young [boys and girls] love [it]. The structural analysis shows that the sentence may be interpreted in a way that young only refers to the boys, or it may be understood as characterising the boys as well as the girls. 

·         Flying planes can be dangerous.

This often quoted example of structural (also called syntactic) ambiguity comes from Noam Chomsky. Sentences that contain lexemes that change their word form or even word class depending on the sentence’s interpretation are part of this category. Flying planes in this example sentence may be understood as “to fly planes” as well as “planes, which fly”. Therefore, the lexeme flying can be interpreted as the gerund form of a verb in a verb phrase, or as an attribute of a noun phrase.

There are several linguists, who have come up with similar examples like the last one. Lyons (1975) (cf. pp. 212f.) as well as Langacker (1993) (cf. p. 432), for example, determine those instances as grammatically ambiguous. The terms structural, syntactic and grammatical ambiguity are basically interchangeable.

Lyons’ examples for grammatical ambiguity are the following: 

·         They can fish.

The ambiguous interpretation is a result of “the double classification” of fish (either intransitive verb or noun) as well as of can (either auxilliary or transitive verb).

·         Beautiful girl’s dress

This is an example similar to the first one of structural ambiguity. It is a question of reference and therefore, may either be understood as [beautiful girl’s] dress or beautiful [girl’s dress]. Is the adjective beautiful attributed to the girl or to the dress? That question makes the reading of the sentence ambiguous.

However, Lyons points out that these cases of free interpretation are hardly leading to misinterpreations in natural language use. It usually gets quite obvious which meaning is aimed at through the rest of the sentence and the context. 

4.  Transformational Ambiguity

The category of transformational ambiguity is mentioned by Lyons (1975), who characterises its prototypes as “ambiguous constructions which depend upon the ‘deeper connexions’” (p. 249). Furthermore, he points out that these constructions are mostly only ambiguous out of context. One of his examples is the phrase the love of God. Isolated from any textual relations it is unclear whether God is the subject or the object in this noun phrase. Additionally, Lyons quotes Chomsky’s already mentioned example of flying planes, which he – in contrast to other linguists – counts as belonging to transformational ambiguity. Basically, neither categorization is wrong as many linguists do not distinguish transformational from grammatical ambiguity. Thus, transformational ambiguity is a subcategory of grammatical ambiguity.

Another Chomskian example mentioned by Lyons is: the shooting of the hunters. This is the same case as the God-example: it is unclear whether the hunters are subject or object in this phrase. 

5.  Scope Ambiguity

A further type of ambiguity called scope ambiguity is discussed by Chierchia and McConnell-Ginet (1993), among others. It is a subcategory of structural ambiguity. However, scope ambiguity can be distinguished from structural ambiguity through its “single surface syntactic structure” (p. 33). Chierchia and McConnell-Ginet’s example for this subcategory is: Someone loves everyone. This sentence can either mean ‘Everyone is loved by (at least) one person.’ or ‘There is a person and this person loves everyone.’ Note that in the former case someone may denote several different individuals, whereas it is only one single individual in the latter case. 

6.  Pun

A pun is a special form of ambiguity (mostly lexical) that is consciously used to create statements with ambiguous – distinct – meanings. That means that a pun is a play with words involving and creating double contexts (cf. Tuggy 1993: pp. 168, 178). Puns in spoken discourse make use of homophones, and puns in written discourse utilize homographs. Punning is a useful tool for jokes, creating at least two meanings – mostly a literal as well as a figurative one. Here is one example: After he ate the duck, the alligator got a little down in the mouth.