Ambiguity Literature Review
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 What is ambiguity?
Ambiguity is defined as the use of words that allows alternative interpretations (Empson, 1953). When two or more lexical meanings are associated with a word, it is ambiguous. The word bark, for example, can mean noise made by a dog or outer covering of a tree as an alternative meaning.
Another definition of ambiguity is forwarded by Bach (1994) who states that if a string of words is interpreted in multiple ways, it can be ambiguous. It means that in addition to the ambiguous word, a phrase or even sentence also can be interpreted in more than one way. For instance: “Visiting relative can be boring” (dt Franz, 1995). The ambiguity arises due to the fact that “visiting relative” as a compound noun means ‘the action of visiting relatives’ and as a noun
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However, it expands the literal meaning of the original statement, which can produce the positive effect, such as satire, humor, and emphasis especially in the advertisement and literary works…In factual, expository prose, ambiguity can also increase the richness and subtlety of language in order to avoid the case of using borrowed words. Therefore, the significance of ambiguity can not be declined in the natural language although it will affect the human communication in a negative way.
2.2. Types of ambiguity
Linguistic ambiguity is classified into many types based on different viewpoints of each scholar, but lexical and structural ambiguities are the two widely discussed types. In this research, each one of them will be explained in detail.
2.2.1. Lexical ambiguity
Hurford and Heasley (1983: 128) defined that lexical ambiguity is the one which results from multiple meaning of a word. For example, “The bill is large” is an ambiguous sentence. It has two readings resulting from the two meanings of the word “bill”: “payment order” or
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