The Differences between Lexical Ambiguity and Structural Ambiguity in English Language 1.

0 Ambiguity English is always considered as an ambiguous language due to its criterion on having ambiguous meaning in the language. The word ambiguous here can be define as a word or an expression that can be understood in two or more possible ways and according to the Oxford English Dictionary, more than 500 words used in English language have an average of ! different meanings. "or instance, the word #round$ has %0 different meanings and not to mention other words that may confuse the learner of English language. This type of ambiguity is &nown as lexical ambiguous and they induce the ambiguity in phrases or even sentences. 'hrases and sentences can also be ambiguous such as the phrase #porcelain egg container$ and this is indentified as structural ambiguous. These two types of ambiguity will lead to misinterpreted problem and each individual could interpret a word in several ways as they want to. Thus, a detailed examination on these problems needs to be distinguished so that the true meaning of the language could be understood well. The confusion and the vagueness of English language due to these ambiguities may lead to images of ridiculousness and sometimes it may be the source of humour. (ence it will result some confusion to the second language learner to the potential confusion that can deter their will to learn the natural language.

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Lexical Ambiguity The most common ambiguity that English language has is lexical ambiguity whereby

a word has more than one meaning )*ach, n.d.+. The most fre,uent everyday words that be considered as confusing are nouns such as chip-, pen and suit. .eanwhile for verbs are call, draw, and run. The ad/ectives consist of deep, dry and hard. 0ccording to *ach )n.d.+, there are various test could be done for ambiguity problem and one of them is by using the two unrelated antonyms to one ambiguous word. "or example, the word 1hard-, this has both 1soft- and 1easy- as opposites. 0nother is the con/unction reduction test. 2onsider the sentence below3 The tailor pressed one suit in his shop and one in the municipal court.
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4e could see that the word 1suit- is ambiguous and provided by the anomaly of the 1crossed interpretation- of the sentence. The word 1suit- used in the sentence above could be refer as article of clothing and 1one- to a legal action. 2ruse )5678+, mentioned that there are two types if lexical ambiguity and there are9 homonymy and polysemy. (omonymy referred as one pronunciation with two clearly different meanings such as these two examples3 i. ii. savings bank river bank

The word ban& in the first example would carry the meaning of financial institution but the second example means as the edge of river. .eanwhile polysemy is one pronunciation with two or more distinct but related meanings. "or instance3 i. ii. green book interesting book

:n these examples, polysemy is about the same as homonymy, they have their own senses in their own lexical entries. The 1green boo&- is referred to the physical ob/ect that is green in colour and 1interesting boo&- means as the content of physical ob/ect that is considered as fascinating. ;ohnson<=aird )567!+ illustrated two important characteristics of lexical ambiguity that would have. (e pointed the characteristics through the passage below3 The plane banked just before landing, but then the pilot lost control. The strip on the field runs for the barest of yards and the plane just twisted out of the turn before shooting into the ground. *y referring to the passage above, it is clear text and we do not have any difficulty to understand in spite of the fact that all its content words are ambiguous. (ence, ambiguous suggests that ambiguity is unli&ely to invo&e special resources that demanding processing mechanism but rather handled as a by<product of normal comprehension. Then, there a number of ways in which can be ambiguous. The word 1plane-, for instance, has several meanings and it a can be used as a verb.
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(owever, *ach )n.d.+ pointed out that it is not always clear when we have only one word. The verb 1desert- and the noun 1dessert-, which sound the same but, are spelled differently count as distinct. This is a clear example of homonymy but what about the noun 1respect- and the verb 1respect- or the preposition 1over- and the ad/ective 1over-> *ach ,uestioned either they are the members of these pairs of homonyms or are they different forms of the same word> Thus, to him there are no general consensus on how to draw and cases of two homonymous words. 'erhaps the difference is ultimately arbitrary.

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Structural Ambiguity

?tructural ambiguity is one of ambiguity that related to the English grammar and often derives from the arrangement of words and structures or forms the classification of words )@orman, n.d.+. *ach )n.d+ defines that structural ambiguity occurs when a phrase or a sentence has more than one underlying structure. The examples of structural ambiguity are as follow3 i. ii. iii. iv. Tibetan history teacher. 0 student of high moral principles. The girl hit the boy with a boo&. Aisiting relatives can be boring.

0ll of these ambiguities can be represented in two structurally different ways, for instance 1BTibetan historyC teacher- and 1Tibetan Bhistory teacherC-. The existence of such ambiguities provides strong evidence for a level of underlying syntactic structure. 4e should consider the next structurally ambiguous sentence3 The chicken is ready to eat. 0ccording to the sentence, we could it to describe either a hungry chic&en or a broiled chic&en. :t is arguable that the operative reading depends on whether or not the implicit sub/ect of the infinitive clause 1to eat9 is tied anaphoric ally to the sub/ect #the chic&en$ of the main clause.
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Are you sa ing more than you did last year! =oo&ing at the sentence above, this can be seen as the genuine structural ambiguity because the word 1more- may be classified as an adverbial meaning that is #to a greater extent$ or a nominal meaning #a greater amount.$ Despite with the ambiguity, yet there is no misunderstanding of the sentence. @orman )n.d.+ added that the grammatical situation would determine the ambiguity and he also stated that most of the structural ambiguity that we are dealing is in written language only, and some will be found in clear spo&en language. Each situation is potentially, not necessarily, ambiguous and sometimes the ambiguity can only occur under specific grammatical reactions. 0t the other times the meanings of the words or the enclosing context will forestall ambiguity. (ere are some examples that involving the 1<in- verb D noun situation3 "atient medicines are sold by frightening people. #frightening people- can be read as a verb D noun ob/ect )someone is frightening the people+, or as an ad/ectival D noun head )The people are frightening+. Then the situation comes whereby separable verb or verb is added to prepositional phrase. "or instance3 The thesis was passed on. This sentence could be read either with active or passive voice. =oo&ing at the passive form, the separable verb is seen in these sentences. .eanwhile in active form, the structural interpretation of verb D prepositional is implied. Thus within these, we could see that the two meanings are &ept apart and this is ambiguous. *ach )n.d.+ mentioned in his writing that it is not always clear when we have a case of structural ambiguity. 2onsider as example the elliptical sentence , "erot knows a richer man than Trump. This sentence has two meanings3 a+ 'erot &nows a man who is richer than Trump b+ 'erot &nows man who is richer than any man Trump &nows

Therefore, it is structural ambiguous. (ence the ambiguity is merely apparent and better described as a semantic under determination. Eeferences *ach. F., )n.d.+., Ambuity in #nglish language. Eetrieved on 0th @ovember 05! in http3GGonline.sfsu.eduG&bachGambguity.html @orman. 2., )n.d.+., $tructural ambiguity for #nglish teachers. @ew Hor& 3 Iniversity of @orthern :owa 'ublisher ;ohnson. =., )5678+., A study in linguistic semantics. 0lbany 3 ?tate Iniversity of @ew Hor& 'ress