On Syntactic Ambiguity
On Syntactic Ambiguity

Summary/Abstract: This paper provides a detailed analysis of syntactic ambiguity, a particular yet rather pervasive phenomenon of the English language. Displayed by multi-word expressions whose ambiguous meaning is not the result of any ambiguous morpheme, nor can it be accounted for in terms of the linear arrangement of their ultimate constituents, syntactic (or structural) ambiguity is classified into analytical ambiguity, attachment ambiguity, coordination ambiguity, elliptical ambiguity and mixed ambiguity. Even though it is seen as pathological in nature by most philosophers and linguists, ambiguity is not necessarily expected to be avoided in all situations, since “double entendre” may sometimes be the desired outcome, pointing to the richness of the human language in general and of the English language in particular.

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