TSLB 3013

TASK 2: PRESENTATION
Group: Aryanna
Sara
Woi Min Xuan
Syntax
- Definition of Syntax
- Rules of syntax
 Definition

﹡ In linguistics, "syntax" refers to the principles that preside

the ways during which words combine to form sentences,
clauses, and clauses. The term is additionally used to mean
the study of the syntactic properties of a language.
﹡ Syntax is the theory that allows people to understand how
to start a question with a question word ("What is that?"), or
that adjectives generally precede the nouns they describe
("blue car"), subjects often precede verbs in non-question
sentences ("He juggled"), prepositional phrases start with
prepositions ("to the mall"), helping verbs precede main
verbs ("can go" or "will do"), and so on.
Ambiguity
- Definition of Ambiguity
- Syntactical Ambiguity
 Definition
﹡ Ambiguity is a concept or situation which can be understood
in more than one way. Ambiguity is analogous to
“vagueness,” except vagueness refers to a general lack of
clarity; something vague may not have any clear meanings
while something ambiguous might need several possible
clear meanings, while that ambiguity refers to something
having multiple possible meanings.
 Syntactical Ambiguity
﹡ In English grammar, syntactic ambiguity is the appearance of
two or more possible meanings within one sentence or
sequence of words, as averse to lexical ambiguity, which is
the presence of two or more possible meanings within a
single word. The context of its use can be determined by the
intended meaning of a syntactically ambiguous phrase.
Syntactical ambiguity is a grammatical construct, and occurs
from the difficulty of applying universal grammatical laws to
sentence structure.
﹡ An example of syntactical
ambiguity is "Bob hit the
﹡ Comparing the phrase "Bob
person with the pole". This
hit the person with the pole"
phrasing is unclear as to
to the analogous "Bob hit the
whether the person was hit
person with the tattoo"
with a pole, or whether the
provides some insights. As a
person with a pole was
tattoo is often associated
struck by Bob. The context
with violent tendencies, the
can substantially reduce
second sentence clearly
syntactical ambiguity. For
conveys that the person with
instance, knowing that either
the tattoo was struck by Bob
Bob, or the person, but not
both, had a pole resolves the
syntactical ambiguity.
﹡ Syntactic ambiguity generally results from the poor usage of
words. If thought isn’t considered when selecting phrases that
could be taken in a connotative rather than a denotative
context may have over one meaning, or if the sentences
during which they're used are not properly constructed, the
results can often be mistaken by readers or listeners.
 Ambiguity in
Communication
- Consequences of Ambiguity in Communication
- Resolution of Ambiguity
 Consequences of Ambiguity in Communication

﹡ Ambiguity can negatively affect the response or the feedback

to the message communicated and received. This may usually
be the case where the reader or listener decides to take for
granted one of the meanings of the ambiguous expressions
communicated to them.

﹡ If they unfortunately take a wrong meaning or interpretation

for granted then this will likely affect their response to the
communicated message. The feedback will be negative or
contrary to the expected. As an example, attached below is a
picture depicting a message addressed to the players on a golf
course.
﹡ This message’s true intent is to warn others
of social distancing, and to reduce risk of
contamination; therefore, the administrators
had issued a reminder to not touch other
players golf-balls.
﹡ However, if the players in question
misinterpreted the notice, there will be a
negative response as most will see the
notice as vulgar with inappropriate
connotations, and this is serious in
communication because the response or
feedback is a most vital parameter utilized
in measuring the effectiveness in
communication.
 Resolution of Ambiguity in Communication

﹡ Ambiguities in language are usually resolved with the proper

use of relevant prosodic features like stress, tone, intonation
and pause; hence, such disambiguation becomes less
problematic because those prosodic features or elements
when properly used can easily make the intended meaning
known. But unfortunately, in written communication it is
significantly harder to represent.
 Example of Prosodic features

﹡ They can fish.

﹡ Can be disambiguated in speech through
intonation.
﹡ ‘can’ in Rising Intonation: They process fish
as canned food.’
﹡ ‘can’ in Falling Intonaton: They know how to
fish or catch fish’
﹡ Ambiguity in written communication can also be resolved by
specifying the intended constituents’ structure of such a
sentence or expression and thereby preventing
misinterpretation.

﹡ This could be done by employing a technique called

hyphenation. As the name suggests, this method involves the
utilization of a hyphen (-), which is one of the more common
punctuation marks that is specially used in the formation of
compound lexical items especially in compound nouns.
 Example of hyphenation

﹡ “New female students’ dorms

﹡ If the meaning intended is ‘the dorm for female students that
is new”, then it can be properly hyphenated as “new female-
students’ dorm”

﹡ “popular culture researcher”

﹡ If the intended meaning of the sentence is “researcher who
studies about popular culture”, then it can be properly
hyphenated as “popular-culture researcher”
﹡ Proper punctuation of grammatical strings using commas can
also help to prevent and resolve cases of double or multiple
semantic interpretations.

﹡ The comma, which happens to be one of the most basic

punctuation marks that is used to indicate a slight pause or as
to separate words in a sentence. Therefore, it can be used to
perform disambiguation/ambiguity-resolution function.
 Example of Comma usage

﹡ “If you need agood car before the end of the month bring
your money”
﹡ can be punctuated properly as “If you need a good car, at the
end of the month bring your money”, if the communicator’s
intended meaning is that the money should be brought at the
end of the month. It can also be punctuated as “ If you need a
good car at the end of the month, bring your money”
﹡ if the communicator’s intended meaning is that the money
should be brought (at an unspecified time) if the good car is
need at the end of the month
 Conclusion
﹡ As future teachers, we should all strive to be good
communicators, therefore we must know how to avoid
ambiguity at all times. This is because ambiguity, due to its
tendency to contain multiple interpretations may prove a
hindrance to proper comprehension, an obstacle in getting the
desired response and an impediment to the attainment of the
communicator’s target goal.
﹡ As a result, we should strive to understand the
possible causes of ambiguity, the consequences of
ambiguity, also the application of corresponding
disambiguation techniques to resolve such
ambiguity, and ultimately attain semantic clarity
which tremendously important in effective
communication
Thank You!