English Ambiguity Essay

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The Different Types of English Ambiguity 【Abstract】 This article is about the different types of ambiguity in English. There are three different types ambiguity in English.They are phonetic ambiguity, lexical ambiguity, syntactic ambiguity.Phonetic ambiguity is mainly caused by the unknown boundaries of syllable, the changes of stress, the intonation, sense group or pause of words, and the emphasis of words.Lexical ambiguity is mainly caused by the ambiguity of polysemy, compound words, transformation words and homophones.In the syntactic structural ambiguity there are two aspects that are the surface structure and deep structure of sentences. 【Key words】 English; ambiguity; phonetic;lexical;syntactic Introduction Language is a common phenomenon.It…show more content…
Ex. 1 A).an ͜ aim B).an ͜ ear-phone a name a near phone 1.2.The Changes of Stress The changes of stress may influence the meaning of words or sentences.For example, di’gest(v. 吸收;消化)-’digest(n.文摘),con’vict(v.定罪)-’convict(n.服刑囚犯).In sentences, the stress is much more flexible, it may fall on any word or any syllable to express different meanings.The following example can show this point. Ex. 2 A).He is an ’English ,teacher. It means that he is a teacher who teaches English. B).He is an ,English ‘teacher.It means that he is a teacher who comes from England. 1.3.The Intonation, Sense Group or Pause of…show more content…
Ex. 3 A).Why don’t you have LUNCH with me? The sentence may implicit two meanings because the speaker emphasized the word, lunch.One is that why don’t you come along and have lunch with me?The other is that why don’t you have lunch with me rather than supper? 2.Lexical Ambiguity Lexical ambiguity is mainly caused by the ambiguity of the word itself, so the scope of ambiguity is limited to the ambiguity of individual words in the sentence.Lexical ambiguity might cause much more complicated problems in the understanding of language, for it exists not only in spoken form but also in written language. 2.1. Polysemy Polysemy means that a word has more than one meanings.Example of polysemy is provided below: Ex. 4 A).I will give her a ring. The word, ring, makes readers or listeners confused, because they can not know what the writer or speaker wants to express.Ring can be understood as a piece of jewellery that you wear on your finger, consisting of a round band of gold, silver, ect. or as a call, a bell. B).The food is not

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