Ambiguity is defined as
a verbal obscurity that causes a sentence to lend itself to more than one interpretation
.
What part of speech is ambiguity?
| part of speech: noun | inflections: ambiguities | definition 1: uncertainty or vagueness in meaning, intention, or the like. She can’t write well, so the letter was full of ambiguity. synonyms: indefiniteness, obscurity, uncertainty, vagueness antonyms: clarity, explicitness, lucidity |
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What is ambiguity and examples?
Ambiguity is
when the meaning of a word, phrase, or sentence is uncertain
. There could be more than one meaning. … Examples of Ambiguity: Sarah gave a bath to her dog wearing a pink t-shirt.
What are some examples ambiguity?
- The bark was painful. (Could mean a tree’s bark was rough or a dog’s bark communicated pain or hurt the listener’s ears).
- You should bring wine or beer and dessert. (Could mean that you must bring just wine, wine and dessert, or beer and dessert).
- Harry isn’t coming to the party.
What is an example of ambiguous sentence?
An ambiguous sentence has
two or more possible meanings within a single sentence or sequence of words
. … Problem: This sentence is ambiguous because it is not clear if Mr Smith was guilty of keeping the snake in the Magistrates Court, or guilty of keeping the snake after he caught it from a neighbour’s property.
What is ambiguity in grammar?
In English grammar, syntactic ambiguity (also called structural ambiguity or grammatical ambiguity) is
the presence of two or more possible meanings within a single sentence or sequence of words
, as opposed to lexical ambiguity, which is the presence of two or more possible meanings within a single word.
How do you remove ambiguity in a sentence?
Expansion: Adding a word or two to the sentence can remove ambiguity.
He finished the race last Thursday. —> He finished the race on last Thursday.
How do you use the word ambiguity in a sentence?
- Their actions showed moral ambiguity . …
- The ambiguity begins to disappear as more explanations are made. …
- This statement has a lot of ambiguity . …
- She chose her clothing carefully to avoid gender ambiguity . …
- The ambiguity cannot be cured. …
- They found possible ambiguity in interpretation.
What are the other words for ambiguity?
Some common synonyms of ambiguous are
cryptic, dark, enigmatic
, equivocal, obscure, and vague. While all these words mean “not clearly understandable,” ambiguous applies to language capable of more than one interpretation.
What does it mean if someone calls you ambiguous?
In ambivalent it refers to having mixed, contradictory, or more than one feeling about something. In ambiguous on the other hand, it means unclear or able to be understood in multiple ways. … ‘Ambiguous’, on the other hand, means “
unclear or capable of being understood in two or more different ways
.”
Is ambiguity good or bad?
It means you’re being unclear or inexact.
Ambiguity is a funny thing
. … In speech and writing, however, ambiguity can be a useful tool. In your speech, you might want to use ambiguity to make your audience consider things for themselves.
What is the importance of ambiguity?
One possible reason that ambiguity is so important to art and literature is that it
offers us the chance to be innovative in our interpretations
. Faced with a work that has multiple meanings or seems vague, we have to actively use our own ideas and judgments to find meaning.
What are the causes of ambiguity?
Another cause of ambiguity is the
use of dangling modifiers
. Dangling modifiers are phrases that do not clearly and logically refer to a noun or pronoun. They usually appear at the beginning of a sentence. Example: ‘While eating lunch in the cafeteria, the computer malfunctioned’.
How do you know if a sentence is ambiguous?
If structure gives rise to meaning, then it follows that different ways of combining words will lead to different meanings. When a word, phrase,
or sentence has more than one meaning
, it is ambiguous.
What is a ambiguity in English?
1a :
the quality or state of being ambiguous especially in
meaning The ambiguity of the poem allows several interpretations. b : a word or expression that can be understood in two or more possible ways : an ambiguous word or expression. 2 : uncertainty.
What is Derivational ambiguity?
Syntactical ambiguity is
a structural or grammatical ambiguity of a whole sentence that occurs in a sub-part
of a sentence (Reilly 1991; Walton 1996). Syntactical ambiguity is a grammatical construct, and results from the difficulty of applying universal grammatical laws to sentence structure.
