Scope Ambiguity
Scope ambiguity may occur in sentences with at least two numerals or quantifiers, where one can be placed within the scope of the other in different ways. Here is an example:
4 students shot 3 professors.
It is unclear whether each student shot at 3 professors (minimum: 3 bullets per student), or whether the students shot at the 3 professors simultaneously (at least 1 bullet each). In other words, the scope of the numbers 4 and 3 is ambiguous.)
Because the ambiguity arises from the relation between numerals or between quantifiers, scope ambiguity is not lexical but structural in nature; however, only a single constituent structure is involved. There may be multiple structures at some non-syntactic
level though, such as different predicate-logic formulae.
The scope of a numeral (e.g. two, 277, thirty) or quantifier (no, some, many, all) expresses what is true of the items designated by the quantified noun phrase (e.g. 20 professors, some students).