Ambiguity is the presence of two or more possible meanings in a single passage.
Adjective: Ambiguous claims are unclear
because they are subject to multiple interpretations.
Identifying an
ambiguity can aid in solving a philosophical problem. Suppose one wonders how
two people can have the same idea, say of a unicorn. This can seem puzzling
until one distinguishes 'idea' in the sense of a particular psychological
occurrence, a mental representation, from 'idea' in the sense of an abstract,
shareable concept. On the other hand, gratuitous claims of ambiguity can make
for overly simple solutions.
−
Two basic types of Ambiguity
1. Semantic Ambiguity
Claims suffer from semantic ambiguity when they contain
a word (or words) with multiple meanings.
Ex: Mary looked
hard .
The
ambiguity arises from the fact that the sentence could roughly mean either:
- Mary
looked intensively, or
- Mary
appeared hard
2.
Syntactic
Ambiguity
Claims suffer from syntactic ambiguity when multiple
possible meanings result from grammar or sentence structure.
“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.
− Grouping Ambiguity
-
A sub-category of semantic ambiguity
-
Refers to words that describe sets of indeterminate scope
“Baseball players make more money
than football players.”
In this sentence, we don’t know
whether “baseball players” refers to the collective set (all baseball players taken
together) or to some smaller subset of baseball players. A similar ambiguity is
in place here for “football players.”
Other example of Ambiguity :
Conclusion
Ambiguity is an important topic worthy of consideration and exploration; its
importance, we should know what are the type of ambiguity firstly, which is if
there an example you can understand what kind of ambiguity it is, the two basic
of type ambiguity Semantics and syntatics Ambiguity. We must know that the
content of sentence if we want to find what the real meaning of the sentence. We
need , above all to concentrate our attention on the syntactic structures of
phrases and sentences ; besides , focus on the mode of pronunciation is of
vital importance . In other words ,optimal and sound pronunciation would enable
us to transmit the sense intended properly and unequivocally .
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