How to proceed
Advice
Words, phrases, sentences, or utterances can have several distinct meanings. This phenomenon is referred to as ambiguity. The discussion of the types of ambiguity and their linguistic triggers constitutes the goal of this unit.
Carefully study all activities in this topic and - once you have understood the content - tick them off to document your progress. At the end - once you are confident - answer the ten mastery questions and obtain the digital badge for this topic (you need 70% or more). And if you don't know where to start, use the questions below. If you can answer them, fine, if not use the hyperlinks to be led to the respective activity.
If you want more specific information about this unit and its components in print, download the Unit Advice (PDF) for help.Central Topics
- Types of ambiguity
- lexical
- structural
- referential
- scope
| No. | Question | ChatGPT |
| 1. | Define the term 'ambiguity'! | * |
| 2. | Give examples of ambiguity at different levels of the linguistic system. | * |
| 3. | If you feel confident, here are some preliminary examples ready for analysis. | * |
| 4. | How would you define lexical ambiguity? What types of lexical ambiguity do you know? | * |
| 5. | Identify different types of homonyms. Provide examples. | * |
| 6. | Several types of relationships may hold between polysemes. Which ones? | * |
| 7. | How do homonymy and polysemy differ from each other? | * |
| 8. | What types of non-lexical ambiguity can you identify? Discuss their properties. (various activities) | * |
| In all VLC courses (except this demo course) you can directly access ChatGPT by clicking on "*" and thus passing the question to the ChatBot. |
References
Cruse, D. Alan. 2011: 51f; chapter VI.
Kempson, Ruth M. 1977: Chapter VIII.
Lyons, John. 2008: 54-60.
Saeed, John I. 2008: 59-65.