Elimination of lexical ambiguities by grammars: The <I>ELAG</I> system

Ambiguity is the property of having two or more distinct meanings or interpretations. Sometimes we found many ambiguities sentences when we are reading or listen to the English sentences. A word or sentence is ambiguous if it can be interpreted in more than one way. The problem stated in this study is: How is the students’ ability in distinguishing lexical and structural ambiguity in English sentences? The purpose of this study is to investigate the students’ ability in distinguishing lexical and structural ambiguity in English sentences at second grade of SMAN 1 Labuapi in academic year 2016/2017. This study used a descriptive qualitative approach. The writer used purposive sampling for taking the sample, namely class IPA 2 which consists of 22 students. The data were collected by a gap-filling test for lexical ambiguity word class of noun and label for structural ambiguity. The results of the research demonstrate that the students of SMAN 1 Labuapi were categorized into a very poor with the average score was 4.450. The writer illustrates the analysis result in the percentage of all test’s items in simple sentences, there were 890 ambiguous words and phrase. Lexical ambiguity involves noun (150) and structural ambiguity involve noun phrase (30). Finally, based on the research findings, the writer concluded that more than a half of students at the second grade of SMAN 1 Labuapi had very poor abilities in distinguishing lexical and structural ambiguity in English sentences.

This study deals with the analysis of Ambiguity in Rachel Lippincott’s Novel “ Five Feet Apart” The objectives of this research are to find out the lexical and syntactical ambiguities found in Rachel Lippincott’s Novel “Five Feet Apart”, to find out the most dominant causal factors of ambiguities appeared in Rachel Lippincott’s Novel “Five Feet Apart”, and to describe how the lexical and syntactic ambiguities appeared in Rachel Lippincott’s Novel “Five Feet Apart”. Descriptive qualitative method was used in this study. The data of this study were taken from Rachel Lippincott’s Novel “Five Feet Apart”. There are seven types of lexical ambiguity appeared in the novel. They are Polysemy, Homonymy, Synonym, Hyponymy, Antonym, Redundancy, and Part of speech. Meanwhile there are six types of syntactical ambiguity. They are Personal pronoun, Adjective, Noun, Preposition, Verb and Adverb. Redundancy ambiguity is the most dominant lexical ambiguity and personal pronoun is the most dominant syntactical ambiguity used in this novel. There are two ways how the writer used lexical ambiguity in Rachel Lippincott’s Novel “Five Feet Apart”. First, the writer repeated the words to insist the readers that everything is the same. Second, the writer made sure the readers what the writer described. In syntactical ambiguity, the researcher found that in Rachel Lippincott’s Novel “Five Feet Apart”, the writer often missed the subject pronoun in the novel

This study aims at finding out lexical and structural ambiguity which occurs in the articles and explaining the causal factors in each ambiguity. The data in this study were taken from nineteen articles in The Jakarta Post daily newspaper from edition November 14 to November 25, 2017. Recording method and note taking technique were applied in this study for collecting the data. Meanwhile, the data were analyzed using qualitative method. Ulmann’s theories that involved kinds of ambiguity and the causal factors of ambiguity, by using Macmillan Dictionary to find the definition of each word in lexical ambiguity and labeled and bracketed sentences/phrases proposed by Yule were used to analyze the data. The result of the analysis shows that there were 20 ambiguous words, phrases or/and sentences found in nineteen articles in The Jakarta Post. There were 8 cases of lexical ambiguities and 12 cases of structural ambiguities. The result of this study shows the causal factors of each ambiguity as well, there were 8 lexical ambiguities caused by polysemy and 12 structural ambiguities caused by equivocal phrasing.

This study dealt with effort of finding the lexical and grammatical ambiguity in English textbook of Bahasa Inggris for the tenth grade. The objectives of the study were to find out the types of ambiguity and to find out the dominant types of ambiguity in Bahasa Inggris of the tenth grade. The numbers of the data were 21 of reading texts which were taken from English textbook of Bahasa Inggris of the tenth grade. The types of ambiguities were identified based on Fromkin et al theory. The research design used in this research is descriptive qualitative. The data were analyzed by Identifying , classifying, tabulating and interpreting. From 21 reading texts, there were 27 sentences that contained ambiguous meaning. There are two types of ambiguity found in reading texts, they were lexical and grammatical ambiguity. The lexical ambiguity consisted of homonym, polysemy and antonym. While grammatical ambiguity consisted of coordinate structure, negation scope, active or passive meaning, gerund + object or participle modifying a noun, prepositional phrase (PP) as modifier or sentence adjunct, and a head of inner modifier and outer modifier. The dominant type of lexical ambiguity was homonymy with 6 occurrences (20.68%). While the dominant type of grammatical ambiguity was coordinate structure as many as 8 occurrences (27.59%).

In this paper it is argued that lexical ambiguity (where a word can have two or more separate meanings) and structural ambiguity (where a phrase can have two or more separate meanings) have profoundly affected the development of the theory of the firm and the economics of organization. We focus particularly on Coase's agenda as to what constitutes the nature of the firm, and argue that intellectual resources have been misallocated in this field of inquiry because of endemic problems of lexical and structural ambiguity. We suggest how the agenda could be restated and redirected. It is concluded that resource-based economics, organizational decision theory and transaction cost analysis (in the broadest sense) should not be seen as potentially competing perspectives or frameworks in analysis of the nature of the firm, but instead as valuable and complementary tools for such analysis.

Since the Covid-19 vaccination rollout, the news media has played an essential role in reporting the vaccine-related news to reduce the risk of getting and spreading the Covid-19 disease. However, people nowadays are preoccupied with busy schedules that they just glance at the news headlines and determine what they imply. If a word, phrase, or sentence in the headlines has more than one interpretation, they may misinterpret them and receive the wrong information. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the lexical and syntactic ambiguity in the vaccines headlines of The Star news and to determine how these ambiguities affected the readers’ interpretation of the headlines. After collecting the headlines from The Star news, the definitions of the words and phrases were deduced using Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, while the sentence structures were identified using parsing. A questionnaire was also disseminated to the respondents to obtain different interpretations of the words or sentences. Next, a semi-structured interview was conducted with nine participants from three different educational backgrounds. The interviews were then transcribed and analysed thematically. The findings revealed that the lexical and syntactic ambiguity existed in the vaccine-related news headlines in The Star, with five lexical ambiguities and three syntactic ambiguities. Nonetheless, the participants were not affected by ambiguities because of the context and knowledge of the topic. The research study also posed a few limitations and gaps, where the other considerations and a larger sample of participants could be considered.

The problem of parsing languages with lexical ambiguities is considered. An algorithm for lexical analysis is proposed that allows the correct processing of various ambiguities. For this algorithm, we propose an algorithm for parsing to make it possible to correctly process both lexical and syntactic ambiguities.

The present research assessed and compared the abilities of 27 learning disabled twelve-year-olds, 27 academically achieving age controls, 10 academically achieving seven- to eight-year-olds, and 10 normally developing five- to six-year-olds to perceive and interpret lexical and syntactic ambiguities in sentences. Eight lexically ambiguous, eight syntactically ambiguous, and four unambiguous control sentences were presented for interpretation of their alternatives in meaning. Each experimental sentence was associated with four pictorial choices. Significant differences in the ability to perceive and interpret the alternative meanings of both lexical and syntactical ambiguities were found between the learning disabled and the academically achieving twelve-year-olds. No significant difference existed in the ability of the learning disabled twelve-year-olds and the seven- to eight-year-old controls to perceive and interpret lexical ambiguities; however, they differed significantly in the ability to interpret the syntactic ambiguities. Comparison of the ability of the learning disabled twelve-year-olds and the five- to six-year-old controls to interpret the syntactic ambiguities indicated no significant differences. Among the learning disabled twelve-year-olds, performances on the ambiguous sentence test correlated positively with performances on tests of delayed sentence recall (NSST-Expressive) and of comprehension of sentences with linguistic concepts and relationships (Semel & Wiig, 1980). Performances did not correlate significantly with measures of verbal intelligence (WISC-R Verbal Scale). The present findings support previous observations of linguistic deficits among learning disabled children and adolescents and suggest that significant limitations may exist in the acquisition of linguistic competence by some children in this diagnostic group.

Job Creation Law Number 6 of 2023 was designed to revise and replace Job Creation Law Number 4 of 2022, which had previously replaced Job Creation Law Number 11 of 2020. Despite the primary objective of this law to address deficiencies in the previous laws, significant potential linguistic issues still exist, namely lexical and grammatical ambiguities. This is evident in several articles whose meanings remain ambiguous, dual, and contradictory with other articles or laws, opening opportunities for diverse interpretations and creating legal uncertainty. This study aims to delineate the forms of lexical and grammatical ambiguity in the Job Creation Law Number 6 of 2023. The research method applied is qualitative research method, focusing on analyzing micro discourse structure, encompassing lexical and grammatical meanings. The research findings reveal that several words and phrases are prone to misinterpretation. Lexical ambiguity is found in the words 'dapat' (can/may), 'memperhatikan' (considering), and phrases such as 'tidak mampu' (unable), 'istirahat panjang' (long rest), 'Paling Banyak' (most), and 'Paling Lama' (longest). In contrast, grammatical ambiguity is observed in phrases like 'Serta harus' (and must) and 'Diberitahu' (informed). These ambiguities are present in Article 17 Paragraph 1, Article 81 Paragraph 33, Article 81 Paragraph 25, Article 42 Paragraph 3, Article 17 Paragraph 32, and the explanatory section of Article 8 Part 33. Based on the research findings, it is crucial to propose a review or re-evaluation of articles that have the potential for controversy due to lexical or grammatical ambiguity.

Although ambiguity in languages is often considered as a problem, it provides value. Ambiguity is found in every aspect of language, but newspaper headlines are outstanding as the most important source of examples of ambiguity. One of the most important reasons that newspaper readers cannot be successful readers while glancing at newspaper headlines is that they are not aware of different types of ambiguities created by special characteristics which are typical of newspaper language. Ambiguity is not only typical of headlines, but in this research I deal with structural (noun-verb) and lexical (polyseme) ambiguity in English headlines written by native and non-native journalists. The hypothesis is that the texts, in the case of this study, the headlines written by native and non-native journalists contain different amounts of structural (noun/verb) and lexical (polyseme) ambiguity. In order to arrive at the exact amounts of the two above mentioned ambiguities, we made fifty tests of ''Noun or Verb?'' tests and fifty tests of ''what does it mean?'' tests based on the headlines in the two English newspapers written by non-native and foreign journalists. The participants were selected from the university undergraduate English students and described and compared the two sets of data in terms of structural and lexical ambiguities to find out which set of English newspaper headlines (written by native or non- native journalists) are more ambiguous. Finally we found out that headlines written by native journalists are more ambiguous both structurally and lexically. The outcomes of the study could be useful for all EFL learners and trainers. Furthermore EFL trainers can employ these findings when teaching Press Courses. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n6p379

The present research assessed the normal development of ability to perceive and interpret lexical and syntactic ambiguities in 40 grade school children, 10 kindergarteners, 10 second-graders, 10 fourth-graders, 10 sixth-graders, and 10 college students. Eight lexically ambiguous, eight syntactically ambiguous, and four unambiguous control sentences were presented for interpretation of their alternatives in meaning. Each experimental sentence was associated with four pictorial choices. Significant increases in the ability to perceive and interpret the alternative meanings of the lexical ambiguities occurred at or before the fourth grade (mean age 10 yr., 0 mo.) while significant changes for the syntactic and deep-structure ambiguities occurred at or before the sixth grade (mean age 12 yr., 0 mo.). Reaction times proved significantly shorter for the unambiguous than for the ambiguous sentences but remained stable over the present age range with the exception that the median reaction times between first and second responses decreased significantly between second grade and college level. The findings suggest that the ability to process lexical ambiguities increases and stabilizes during the concrete operational stage while the ability to process syntactic ambiguities stabilizes during the formal operational stage (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969).

Acknowledgements Introduction Aim and scope Ambiguity in poetry: a critical survey The status of ambiguity in poetry Some definitions of literary ambiguity Organisation of chapters Notes. Towards a re-definition of ambiguity Clarifying some essential terms Meaning, and 'significance' 'Lexical ambiguity' Some useful related notions Type-token distinction Actual and potential ambiguity Context, reader and relevance Notes. A semantic-pragmatic approach to ambiguity Distinctions between semantics and pragmatics A semantic approach to ambiguity Sense relations A pragmatic approach to ambiguity Implicature and the cooperative principle The notion of relevance A Re-definition of ambiguity Notes. The role of context in ambiguity The importance of context in a study of ambiguity Linguistic views on context Literary views on context The Nature of context Coherence and relevance Context and reader Context and ambiguity in the poetic text Context and ambiguit Text and context Conclusion Notes. The role of reader in ambiguity Reader-response criticism The reader and ambiguity Subjectivity and the status of the reader Interaction between reader and text Type-reading and token-reading Conclusion Notes. Ambiguity and cognate phenomena Double or multiple meaning Indeterminacy Vagueness Obscurity Pun Conclusion Notes. Sources of lexical ambiguity Metaphors Other figures Metonymy Symbolism Allegory Paradox Irony Lexical innovation Compounding Derivation Referential uncertainty Conclusion Notes. Conclusion Micro-ambiguity and macro-ambiguity The poetic value of lexical ambiguity Some final remarks. References. Index.

Linguistic ambiguity is a pervasive phenomenon in language.It occurs when a word, phrase, or sentence has more than one meaning.Although it is often considered a problem since it may cause confusion and hinder the precise understanding of language, it has its own value.Linguistic ambiguity enriches language and produces positive effects such as creating irony and adding a sort of humor.This study focuses on how lexical ambiguity, one type of linguistic ambiguity, can be a source of verbal humor.The data of the study are 20 examples of jokes and riddles that are taken from three internet sites; each example relies on lexical ambiguity.The data are analyzed to identify the words that contain lexical ambiguity in the selected jokes and riddles, classify them into the forms of lexical ambiguity, i.e., homonymy with its three subtypes (absolute homonymy, homophone and homograph) and polysemy showing the frequency of each form, and illustrate how lexical ambiguity can create a sort of humor in the light of the Incongruity Theory of humor.The results of the data analysis show that lexical ambiguity can create verbal humor according to the Incongruity Theory of humor.

In language, ambiguity is often considered a problem. Ambiguity can be found in every aspect of language whether it is written or spoken. Research in terms of ambiguity mostly found in written language, but this study conducted using spoken data. In this research, the ambiguity that is going to be studied is an ambiguity spoken by Non-native English speaker in a humoristic way. Lexical ambiguity is usually caused by homonymy and polysemy. This research aims to describe the ambiguity in the British television series Mind Your Language Season 1 and the writer focus on the lexical ambiguity and contextual meaning. The type of this research is descriptive qualitative. The technique of collecting the data is note-taking technique. The writer describes all possible meanings from the ambiguous jokes by analyzing the contextual meaning. This study conducted to find types of lexical ambiguity used by non-native English and described all possible meanings from the ambiguous jokes within the context. There are two lexical ambiguities found in this data, polysemy and homonymy. The writer found 51 words considered as lexical ambiguity. From 51 words, 15 words were classified as polysemy and 36 as homonymy. In homonymy, there are 18 words categorized in both homonyms and homophones. By analyzing the contextual meaning, the writer reveals the correct interpretation and intention of the ambiguous words. The writer also found the reason why the jokes are considered as lexical ambiguity. Finally, the writer reveals the type of lexical ambiguity used by non-native English.Keywords: ambiguity; contextual meaning; lexical ambiguity; polysemy; homonymy

Problem. In modern society, the role of modeling as a way of cognizing objects with complex structures is growing. The problem of development of models and criteria of semantic equivalence of data under the condition of their lexical ambiguity in relation to relational databases is considered. This is due to the impossibility or undesirability of conducting an experiment on real objects. Modeling was initially applied in "well" studied subject areas (for which the basic laws of object interaction were already known. This knowledge made it possible to set a priori the class of used models of the subject area and reduce the task to setting the model parameters according to the available experimental data. A fundamental change in the modeling scheme occurred during the transition to the development of modeling systems for "weakly" formalized subject areas, where the structure itself and the class of applicable models must be refined in the course of research. The widespread use of relational DB and their use in a wide variety of applications shows that the relational data model is sufficient for modeling domains. Results. The purpose of developing criteria is to prevent relational algebra operations on attributes with lexical and semantic ambiguity. Methods of developing methods and criteria are based on the use of mathematical methods and the use of modern information technology. The scientific novelty is to solve the problem of semantic comparability of relational relations attributes by means of relational model, which allows to effectively solve problems of prevention of relational algebra operations, which lead to data destruction due to ambiguity of lexical and semantic meanings of attribute names. The practical significance lies in the development of methods for organizing access to data in large subject areas, which together with the degree of efficiency of their processing serve as the foundation of the modern information industry and normalizes the vocabulary of subject area description and coordination of management tasks within a single approach.