从语法角度浅析科技英语中的歧义现象(3)
John came up with the problem. John solved the problem too.
Example 4
Motion is infinite in variety, and the study of certain simple types of motion constitutes the science of mechanics.
The word “and” has a lot of meanings. It can mean constellation in sentence” Tom and Jin are good friends”. It can mean climactic relation in sentence “I had too exams yesterday, and I got 2As”. It can also mean transition relations in sentence” I practiced a lot, and I failed in the driving test.” The sentence may cause logic ambiguity here, it is different determine the meaning of “and” without the context, it can mean constellation, climactic relation or transition relations.
2.1.3 Syntactical ambiguity
English is a kind of fuzzy language, the grammar structure is not very strict. Especially extensive uses of composite structure and the various restrictive modifier phrases make surface structure of technical English often corresponds to multiple deep structures.
Syntactic ambiguity is a property of sentences which may be reasonably interpreted in more than one way, or reasonably interpreted to mean more than one thing. Ambiguity may or may not involve one word having two parts of speech or homonyms.
Syntactic ambiguity arises not from the range of meanings of single words, but from the relationship between the words and clauses of a sentence, and the sentence structure implied thereby.
Example 5
The chicken is ready to eat.
This sentence can mean that the chicken is ready to be fed or to be fed to someone depending on the thematic assignment. In current semantic theory, this is because ‘the chicken’ is assigned agent on one reading and patient on another. Arguably, this is a syntactic phenomenon assuming principles that align thematic role and syntactic position.
Example 6
Sam loves Jess more than Jason.
This sentence can mean either that Sam loves Jess more than he loves Jason or that Sam loves Jess more than Jason loves Jess. This ambiguity arises from phrasal and clausal comparatives: the phrasal comparative of ‘more than’ takes a noun phrase and relates Jess and Jason (effectively saying that the degree to which Sam loves Jess exceeds the degree to which he loves Jason).
2.2 The previous study about ambiguity
Over the years, there are a variety of linguistic theories and models from different angles exploring ambiguity, from the simple syntax and semantic analysis to the expanded view of the ambiguity research. The modern artificial intelligence even provides ways to remove ambiguities, such as the verb typepriority tags and vocabulary-based approach. But so far, studies of ambiguity are still inadequate, most of the research is limited to a certain level of language, vocabulary and syntax. The focus of study is only confined to the definition of language ambiguity, as well as exploring the reasons constituting the language ambiguity. At home, Pan Wenguo (2004) outlined the grammatical device of Chinese and English, and give a comparison about the ambiguity between the two language. Zhang Tingyu (2010) gave a good classification on ambiguity, but fails to provide enough examples, so the article was not full. Guo Chunning and Li Hua (2004) gave a more precise classification, and put forward some methods to avoid the ambiguity. Abroad, Sperber and Wilson (2001)’s relevance theory gave an explanation on the ambiguity and provides a good theoretical framework to avoid ambiguity. Adam Sennet (2011) illustrated the concept of the linguistic ambiguity, and strictly point out the differences between ambiguity, vagueness, and generality.