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T Y P E S
Most sources differentiate between two types of ambiguity: lexical and syntactic or structural.
A third type of ambiguity, textual ambiguity, is also of relevance in diplomacy.
Lexical (also known as referential)
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The comedian Dick Gregory tells of walking up to a lunch counter in Mississippi during the days of racial segregation. The waitress said to him, “We don’t serve colored people.” “That’s fine,” he replied, “I don’t eat colored people. I’d like a piece of chicken.” (Quoted by Stephen Pinker,
The Language Instinct, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1994) |
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Lexical ambiguity is ambiguity based on a single word. In many cases, a single word in a language corresponds to more than one thought, for example, the adjective
light (not dark vs. not heavy); the noun bank (financial institution vs. the edge of a river); and the verb
run (to move fast vs. to direct or manage). Words may also have more than one meaning through their unrelated use in more than one category of speech, for example,
can (a container of food – noun vs. to be able to – verb).
Inattentive use of ambiguous words can lead to humorous, or even awkward situations, as shown by these newspaper headlines collected by Stephen Pinker.
Iraqi Head Seeks Arms
Child’s Stool Great for Use in Garden
Stud Tires Out
Stiff Opposition Expected to Casketless Funeral Plan
Drunk Gets Nine Months in Violin Case
Syntactic (also known as structural or sentence)
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In the movie Animal Crackers Groucho
Marx says “I once shot an elephant in my pyjamas. How he got into my pyjamas I’ll never know.” (Quoted by Stephen Pinker)
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Sometimes an entire sentence has more than one different and incompatible interpretations, even if none of the words are ambiguous. This happens when one part of the sentence may grammatical specify in more than one direction.
Drazen Pehar provides the following example: I am prepared to give the sum of one million dollars to you and your husband. This can be understood as
I am prepared to give the sum of (1 million $) (to you) and (your husband) – making a total of two million dollars; or as
I am prepared to give the sum of (1 million $) to (you and your husband) – making a total of only one million dollars.
Lexical ambiguity can also lead to humorous sentences, for example, the following collected from newspapers by Stephen Pinker.
Yoko Ono will talk about her husband John Lennon who was killed in an interview with Barbara Walters.
Two cars were reported stolen by the Groveton police yesterday.
The judge sentenced the killer to die in the electric chair for the second time.
The summary of information contains totals of the number of students broken down by sex, marital status and age.
No one was injured in the blast, which was attributed to a buildup of gas by one town official.
One witness told the commissioners that she had seen sexual intercourse taking place between two parked cars in front of her house.
Cross-Textual
Drazen Pehar describes a third type of ambiguity which is based on incompatibilities between different parts of a text, or specifications in multiple directions, across a text. Pehar writes: “This kind of ambiguity is best exemplified with so-called
'open-ended sentences' which can be found in legal texts. For example, a chapter in a peace treaty may begin with a precise enumeration of the powers that one entity, for example, a central federal authority, may exercise. But at the end of the chapter an open-ended provision is inserted, which may, for instance, state that
'the central federal authority may exercise some other duties as well.'”
("Use
of Ambiguities in Peace Agreements," Language and
Diplomacy, Malta: DiploProjects, 2001)
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