Matakuliah: G0922/Introduction to Linguistics Tahun: 2008 Session 12 Syntax 3

Bina Nusantara University 2 LEARNING OUTCOMES  Students are able to recognize the meaning of ambiguous sentences  Students are able to make a tree diagram for ambiguous sentences

Bina Nusantara University 3 Ambiguity Ambiguity : having more than one meanings Lexical ambiguity: –Word which has more than one meaning (homonymy – polysemy) Bank : the place for saving money sides of the river Fork : instrument for eating instrument for taking hays

Bina Nusantara University 4 Ambiguity Syntactic Ambiguity: a structure is capable or more than one interpretation. V-ing + noun often cause syntactic ambiguity - Visiting relatives can cause problems - 1: Relatives who visit us can cause problems - 2: When we visit relatives there can be problems Sentences involving ambiguity lead to a problem of interpretation

Bina Nusantara University 5 Ambiguity Sentence ambiguity –A sentence which can have more than one meanings. The ambiguity of the sentence does not depend on the ambiguity of the words in the sentence. She was watching the colorful ball. –The sentence is ambiguous because of the ambiguous words ball –Ball : can mean a round toy and a party He saw me in the garden. –In this sentence there is no ambiguous word but the sentence is ambiguous –1: He saw me. It happened in the garden. (He and I were in the garden) –2: He saw me. I was in the garden. (He was somewhere else)

Bina Nusantara University 6 Beliefs and attitudes The beliefs and attitudes of somebody may influence his interpretation of a sentence. –The judge denied the prisoner’s request because he was cautious. –The judge denied the prisoner’s request because he was dangerous. The personal pronoun he in the first sentence is normally interpreted as the judge and he in the second sentence as the prisoner. This happens because the judge is associated to the good thing and the prisoner to the bad thing.

Bina Nusantara University 7 Setting and discourse Setting : –refers to the physical environment when a sentence is uttered. –E.g. this, that, those, come, go Discourse: –Refers to the connected series of the utterances produced. –E.g. A girl is walking along the street. She is very beautiful The interpretation of She depends on a girl in the previous sentence

Bina Nusantara University 8 Interpreting Ambiguous Sentences Smoking cigarettes can be nauseating - smoking cigarettes can make you sick - fumes from burning cigarette can make you sick Terry loves his wife and so do I - Terry loves his wife and I love his wife too - Terry loves his wife and I love my wife too Biting insect are dangerous - Insects that bite you are dangerous - To bite insects is dangerous

Bina Nusantara University 9 Tree diagram The magician touched the child with the wand the childwith the wand the wand

Bina Nusantara University 10 Tree diagram The magician touched the child with the wand the child with the wand the wand