The Types of English Lexical Ambiguities And Their Semantic Analysis

=0教育平台The Types of English Lexical AmbiguitiesAnd Their Semantic Analysis段春艳广州番禺职业技术学院外语系 511483[ Abstract ] This paper makes a monographie study of the ambiguities of English words and phrases with a lasified description and analysis of the lexi-cal ambiguities and their semantic properties brought about by homonyms, idioms, American English and British English as well as rhetorical figures.[ Keywords ] lexical ambiguity, homonyms, polysemy, idioms, American English, British English, rhetorical figures中图分类号:H313文献标识码:A 文章编 号: 1009- -4067( 2010)1- -0066 -02IntroductionThe author used the polysemous word‘arms' ，which could mean not onlythe“ weapons”but also the“Ilimbs of body”which symbolize the love of hissociety. The relationship between words and their meanings is arbitrary.wife.Even for the same word, it may have diferent explanations, bearing more3.Adjectivethan two meanings in different contexts. We say the word is ambiguous. .In English, the function of adjective words is the same with that of theDanish linguist Jesperson holds that ambiguity is the inherent feature of anyattribute clause. They can be determninative or undeterminative. But for thenatural language. It can be said that ambiguity is a universal and everlast-undeterminative adjective words they don' I need to be marked by a comma,ing language phenomenon.so ambiguity may be caused. For example:I . HomonymThe patriotic Americans have great respect for their country s constitu-Homonyms are the words that are written and pronounced in the sametion. (Goffrey Leech Jan Svartvik: A Communicative Grammar of English, .way, while have completely different meanings. In modern language therep.62)are lots of homonyms that result in the complicate and unintelligible ambi-guities. For example:adjetive, patriotic Americans may refer to‘all Americans' , but if we con-sider the word as an undeterminative adjective, patriotic Americans may“Bear”have the meanings of“ give birth to”, “tolerate' ，and“ carry' ,only mean those American who are patriotie as opposed to those who areso this sentence can be understood in the following ways:Jane can't give birth to children. / Jane can' t tolerate children. /Jane4. Functional Wordscan' t carry children.Functional words have no complete meanings, but have grammaticalI. Polysemyand functional meanings. They can express the relationship with otherPolysemy means a word having two or more closely related meanings.words. When the functional words have different roles in sentences, theyAmerican linguist G. L. Brook said: “Polysemy is the language base of am-may produce different meanings. For example:biguity." Polysemy is involved in many classes of words, content words in-The man who was seen by the girl was shot.cluding verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbials or functional words includ-Because functional words may indicate an“ agent' , or a“position ”, soing prepositions and auxiliary verbs.this sentence may be explained as fllowing1. VerbThe girl saw that the man was shot by soneone. /Someone saw that theThere is a huge amount of verbs in English, and many of them haveman who stood by the girl was shot.overlapping meanings, so polysemy is very common in English verbs. In Them. IdiomsNew English Dictionary, under the verb“cut”there are more than two hun-ldioms can be categorized into demotivated idioms and motivated id-dred entries. Let' s look at the following example of ambiguity caused byoms. For the demotivated idioms the meanings of the idioms and the mean-English verbs.ings of each word have no relation. But for the motivated idioms there issome relationship between the meaning of the idiomn and the meanings ofIn this sentence,‘overlook” has the dfferent meanings of“inspect,each word. Therefore, ambiguity may occur because of the difference be-supervise”and‘ ignore, fail to see”。 These two completely different mean-tween the original meaning and the derivational meaning.ings make the sentence unintelligible to everybody.There are two notorious ambiguous phrases worth mentioning here. The2. Nounmeanings are completely diferent with the original one. For example:Things and phenomenon in the eternal world are countless, however,(1) There is no love lost between the lwo.the words used to name these things and phenomenon are countable inThere i中国煤化工wo persons are close withnumber. So that means the countable words must express the counlesseach other.YHCNMHGthings, unavoidable ambiguity is produced as a result. For example:(2) No time souu心1USL川exporing te question. .A Farewell to Arms. ( E. Hemingway )The question should be explored immediately. / it is wasting time toThis is the name of the American novelist Earnest Hemingway's novel.explore the question.66方冉数子商务12010.1教育平台φ=IV. American English and British Englishthe direct opposite of one' s thoughts, in order to make one 's remarksAmerican English and British English are the two varieties of English,forceful. W hen we understand the irony, we must pay attention to the oppothey belong to the same language, and are similar in pronunciation, gram-siteness of the surface meaning and the real meaning, otherwise misunder-mar and vocabulary. However, there is some diference between them, espe-standing will be caused. For example:cially in vocabulary. The most notable diference is that homophone canLet us continue this noble war, by all means; when the best young menproduce ambiguity, which is the biggest problem for successful communica-of their generation have all been killed or maimed, the rest of us can con-gratulate ourselves on having upheld the national honor. (Frederick Crews:Complete homophonesThe Random House Handbook, p.399)American English and British English. For example: .using them, a great attack is launched against the disgraceful event thatExample words3EAFkilled many good youth men.Billion .million millionsthousand millions4. EuphemismCrackerfireworkbiscuitEuphemism is the use of other mild, vague and indirect words orHomelyplainbad-lookingPantsunderwear trouserstrouserscommunicative functions, it may be casified into ltwo kinds, exaggeratingsidewalkstreet surfaceeuphemism and narrowing euphemism. No matter what kind of euphemism,This kind of words is nor so many in English, but they have obviousthe sub- -audition is stressed not the original meaning.ambiguity. Not only foreign students are slow in grasping them, even the5. UnderstatementBritish or American people may have problems.Understatement is also called indirect affirmation, a kind of figure ofV. Rhetorical figuresspeech which uses the negative side of sonething to strengthen the positiveRhetorical figures are special expressions for language use. It usuallyside. In English there are down-toners like“a bit, almost, hardly, kind ofenlarges the connotation of words through imagination and association, thenquite, pretty, rather, scarcely” to take place of the up-toners like“very' ,the ambiguity of rhetorical figures appears. There are many kinds of rhetori-and ambiguity is produced in this way. For example:cal figures, among them figures of speech, pan, irony, euphemism, under-“Money," she says with quite understatement, "is kind of tight. But 1statement often bring ambiguity in meaning.manage.'”(Griffin Smith, Jr, National Geographic)1. Figures of speech .sentence,“kind of" has thFigures of speech mean a word or phrase which is used for special ef-with fureen children to bring up, she must be in great need of money. Un-fect, and which does not have its usual or literal meaning. If we want toderstatement is used here to strengthen the difficult situation of the woman.grasp the true meaning of the figures of spech, we must not be confused byConclusionits original meaning, but grasp the true meaning through imagination andThere is a huge amount of lexicon in English, s0 lexical ambiguity isassociation. W hatever figures of speech are used, ambiguity is always pro-very common everyday. In this paper, I try to make a monographic study ofduced through its changed meaning, which makes the expression morethe ambiguities of English words and phrases with a lassified descriptionvividly and colorful. For example:and analysis of the lexical ambiguities and their semantic properties broughtThere ' s that bree-iving like a fighing cock and rllig in my mon-about by homonyms, polsemantic words, idioms, American English andey, while his poor wife is left to starve. (H. R. Haggard )British English as well as rhetorical figures. There is long history in study-Simile is used in this sentence, this simile means a happy and wonder-ing the lexical ambiguily in linguistic field, which is because it not only hasful life with no worry on food.‘Rolling in money” is a metaphor whichthe practical efct on the comprehension, communication, writing, andmeans that theperson having lots of money and living a luxurious life.translation in English, but also promotes the development of linguistic theo-2. Pun .y.Pun is the humorous use of different words which sound the same or ofReference:two meanings of the same word. For exarmple: .[1] Kempson, R .M. "Ambiguity and Word Meaning' ，in Studies inI finally figure out how government works. The Senate gets the billEnglish Linguistics, Longman Group Ltd, London, 1980from the House, The president gets the bill from the Senate. And we get the2] Lyons, J. Semantics, Foreign Language Teaching and Researchbill for everything.Press, 2000.There are three “il”in this sentence, the former two refer to the pro-[3] Quirk, R. et al, A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Lan-posals in the meeting, and the last one refers to the bill. The proposals are .guage, Longman Group Ltd, London & New York, 1985.transferred to the Senate, then to the President, but at last when it is trans-[4] PalmeE下on, Cambridge University中国煤化工”ferred to the public, only the bill has to be paid. The ironical sense isPress, 1981.shown clearly.[5]邹金.TYHC N M H G象M,西北工业大学学.3. Irony报2000,(12).Irony is the expression of one' s meaning by saying something that is2010.1卜中国电子商务◆67