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8/10/2019 Session 3_ Ambiguity and Vagueness
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8/10/2019 Session 3_ Ambiguity and Vagueness
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practice
The cow was found by a stream by a farmer.
John saw the man on the mountain with a telescope.
Flying planes can be dangerous.
They are hunting dogs.
I'm going to sleep.
I promise I'll give you a ring tomorrow.
8/10/2019 Session 3_ Ambiguity and Vagueness
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A minister said, “My officials are monitoring this situation very closely, and I can promise that we shall take
all appropriate measures to ensure that the situation is
resolved in a way that is fair to all the parties involved.”
8/10/2019 Session 3_ Ambiguity and Vagueness
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Ambiguity is a clear cut phenomenon: both words and
sentences can have more than one meaning, and the
semantic rules a linguist sets up must state correctly for
each language which words and sentences have more than
one meaning
The problem lies in deciding what counts as ambiguity?
Examples:
F lying planes can be dangerous
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There are many cases where it is not at all clear whether
the word, phrase or sentence in question is ambiguous or
not? Take the word good . Is good ambiguous?
She has good legs
A good student
A good fi lm
Is the word good homogenous and neutral between all
these different specifications, or whether good has
different meanings according to its use in describingdifferent things?
The differences of interpretation and meaning for the word
good lies solely on its evaluation on different usage.
8/10/2019 Session 3_ Ambiguity and Vagueness
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Vagueness- something that is unclear. When a statement is
vague, no clear definition or explanation can be used to
describe the situation or occurrence.
Example:
“Help Wanted”
It doesn't specify what position is being offered
8/10/2019 Session 3_ Ambiguity and Vagueness
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AMBIGUITY VS VAGUENESS
AMBIGUITY VAGUENESS
Reader could easily grasp the truemeaning of what was being discussed.
Reader have difficulty to grasp the truemeaning.
Statements can be understood. Statements can lead tomisunderstandings because people candraw different conclusions.
8/10/2019 Session 3_ Ambiguity and Vagueness
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1. Referential vagueness
2. Indeterminacy of meaning
3. Lack of specification in the meaning of an item
4. Disjunction in the specification of the meaning of an item
8/10/2019 Session 3_ Ambiguity and Vagueness
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1. Referential vagueness Where the meaning of the lexical item is in principle clear
enough but it maybe hard to decide whether or not the
item can be applied to certain objects
Example of the lexical items: city and town
What is a city? What is a town? Examples of town and city?
The meanings of these items need to have specification
along certain lines, as in to decide whether a place is a cityor town
Other examples: When is a mountain not a mountain but
merely a hill ? When is a forest not a forest but a wood ? etc
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3. Lack of specification in the meaning of
an item Where the meaning is clear but only generally specified
The simplest example can be the item neighbor that isunspecified in terms of gender, race, age etc
Verbs such as go and do have a clearly specifiablemeaning yet cover a wide variety of actions, since thismeaning is so general
He went to the station can connote a lot of interpretation
and meaning but has a meaning of directional motion I’ve done the sitting room, to do the engine , to do thework etc. mean to carry out an action involving thatobject; but what action is quite unspecified …
8/10/2019 Session 3_ Ambiguity and Vagueness
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4. Disjunction in the specification of the
meaning of an item Where the meaning involves an either-or statement of
different interpretation possibilities
The applications for the job either had a fi rst class degree
or some teaching experience
All competi tion must either be male or wear a one piece
swimming costume
One of the two conjunctions is true and there is aninterpretation in which both implications can be held
simultaneously
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Our definition of ambiguity, which is standard truthconditional definition, is that a sentence is ambiguous if it
can be true in quite different circumstances
An alternative definition is that: a sentence is ambiguous
if it can be true or false John ki l led Bi ll intentionally/accidentally?
The characterization of ambiguity as simultaneous
assignment a sentence of the values true and false has not
provided a criterion for deciding unclear cases; it merely
accentuates the point of disagreement
8/10/2019 Session 3_ Ambiguity and Vagueness
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Anaphoric processes Which refer back to the earlier part of the sentence. One
example of this is in the expression to do so too . This is
used where the action described has already been specified
and is being referred to again
Do so expressions require identity of meaning, and where
the meaning in question is unspecified with respect to
some contrast, there is no reason to expect that non-
identical interpretation are excluded
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Anaphoric processes examples John hi t Bi l l and Jason did so ( both)
Johnny saw her duck and Wil l did so ( same ambigui ty)
John is my neighbor and Sue is too ( not same properties)
The painter has done the sitti ng room and the carpet-man has too. (unspecified)
Johnny ki l led a bir d today, and so did Susie (unspecif ied &intentionally)
Gesualdo kil led his wife, and so did Orpheous (unspecif ied &intentionally)
John almost kil led the hostages and so did Manuel ( more unclear)
John almost ki l led the hostages and so did Manuel. John f irst severelywounded them and then Manuel was on the point of f inally kil l ingthem when the pol ice burst in and tore the gun f rom him.
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