Session 3_ Ambiguity and Vagueness

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.



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.”



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



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.



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



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.



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



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



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 …



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



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



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



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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