Ambiguous Use Research Articles

What is an isogloss?

This short contribution discusses the term and concept of isogloss: the space where a linguistic phenomenon exists or, by metonymic extension, the line that separates a particular linguistic phenomenon from another. Although the concept is currently used as an established and canonical term in linguistics, it is reasonable to explore its scope and the real sense that it carries, as well as to consider its origins and potential ambiguity in use. The main issue with the concept is that it seems to be theoretically necessary yet at the same time is not empirically attestable, which runs contrary to essential epistemological principles. We will seek to show that a) there is no contradiction between the existence of isoglosses as discrete units and the continuity of phenomena on the empirical level, b) the supposed end of the era of the diatopic anchorage of language in times of modern migration is a myth, c) that isoglosses should not be considered as established lines but rather as projections resulting from processes of individual constructions of spaces, and finally, d) that a central task of dialectology and of historical linguistics consists of the identification of the multi-layered superposition of different isoglosses that reflects the complex history of a language or variety.

Ambiguity of ‘snack’ in British usage

Research into least fattening eating patterns indicates that in England ‘a snack’ is a term that refers to different eating habits from ‘snacking’ and that neither pattern of behaviour necessarily involves ‘snack food’. These hypotheses were tested by randomised mailings to a convenience sample of university campus addressees with the subject heading of the message and the topic of questions in it being one of the terms, a snack, snacking or snack food. Responses to all three terms much more often referred to eating between mealtimes than eating at mealtimes but this contrast was less for a snack, especially at lunchtime. Previous and subsequent eating occasions therefore tended to be at mealtimes, but again less so for a snack. A snack also differed from snacking or eating snack food in eliciting more reports by women of eating in the home than out, and more eating alone than in company. However, reports by men contributed most to differences between snack terms in the foods reported: more men ate bread in a snack than when snacking but more ate sweet items when snacking than in a snack. More men reported savoury items (e.g. potato crisps) as snack food than in response to the other two terms; however, when savouries were combined with bread-containing items, the women were unlike the men in that more of them referred to such items when snacking. Thus, for these people in England, having a snack is not the same thing as snacking or eating snack food. Because of these ambiguities in use of the root word snack, it may be best to avoid all its derivatives in questions to research participants, discussion among investigators and educational messages.

Meaning of craving in research on addiction.

The meaning of the word craving varies as illustrated by Kozlowski and Wilkinson's reports of ambiguities in use amongst cigarette smokers. We extended this line of investigation to problem drinkers who sought a goal of controlled drinking versus abstinence, to professionals involved in the addictions area, and to university students. Significant differences in meaning were noted particularly among the problem drinkers (N = 256 between 17 and 60 years of age). Reasons for this are offered.

Ambiguities about realism and utterly distinct objects

Some recent attempts to refute contemporary antirealism are puzzling in at least two important respects: Firstly, it is puzzling how philoso? phers who represent opposite sides of the realist-antirealist debate as this pertains to recent semantic theory, can both be attacked as antirealists and moreover, be attacked on fairly analogous grounds. Thus, we find Michael Devitt, in his 'Dummett's Anti-Realism' offering a refutation of Dummett; and we find Crawford Elder, in his 'The Case Against Irrealism' attacking philosophers like Quine and Davidson as irrealists or antirealists.1 This first puzzle can be cleared up by pointing to an often ignored ambiguity in the recent use of terms like 'realism' and 'antirealism'. But secondly, there is another puzzle having to do with the fact that some of these recent refutations of antirealism seem to succeed, if they succeed, only in virtue of another use or meaning for these terms-a use that seems quite irrelevant to the issues at hand. I think that this puzzle is more serious. Accordingly, I shall first discuss the current (and understandable) ambiguity in the use of terms like 'realism' and 'antirealism', and then address what I consider to be the illegitimate introduction of another meaning for these terms as this occurs, tacitly or otherwise, in some of the recent refutations of antirealism. The contemporary use of the term 'antirealism' is ambiguous-at least in the context of recent semantic theory. On the one hand, the term is associated with philosophers in the camp of Michael Dummett who apply the term primarily to their epistemic notion of truth and derivatively to a theory of meaning that explicates sentence meaning in terms of warranted assertibility or verificationist conditions. This is done in order to satisfy the constraint that any adequate theory must account for a speaker's acquisition and understanding of sentence meaning as this is manifested in publicly discernible speech dis? positions and linguistic usage. In this sense, antirealism is presumably opposed to 'realist' theories like Davidson's that explain sentence meaning in terms of unconstrained truth conditions and construe truth value as a non-epistemic feature of sentences for which the principle

Functionality and Observed Versus Predicted Gel Points

Abstract An ambiguity in use of the term functionality is pointed out. The two most widely used relations (Flory, and Stockmayer and Kahn) connecting extent of reaction at the gel point and functionality are examined. The relations are shown mathematically to lead to the same result when all assumptions and definitions are considered. Measured gel points of polyesters are compared with those predicted by the equation. Deviations were less than 10% of the predicted values. An ambiguity in definition has been observed for the word functionality which has led to unnecessary confusion of thought. It is believed that this confusion has often occurred and has been seen in the literature quite recently [1,2]. On the one hand, functionality has been used to mean the number of chain ends united at the branch points in a polymer network. Since branch points can unite no fewer than three chain ends, functionality in this sense can take on values of three or greater. Networks are most often three or four functional. If more than one type of branch point is present, the average functionality can be calculated as a fraction with a value above three.