Some cases of Ambiguity in English

Abstract

Ambiguity ,which is pronounced / ambiguiti/ .is the property of  being ‘ambiguous’ ,where a word ,term , notation , sign symbol , phrase, sentence ,or any other  form used for communication ,is called ambiguous if it can be interpreted in more than one way. Ambiguity, however ,is context –dependent ,i.e .the same linguistic item ,be it a word, phrase , or sentence may be ambiguous in one context and unambiguous in another .                                                                                                                                                                                                          Ambiguity to Crystal (1988;15) is the reference to a word or sentence which expresses more than one meaning and this reference has to do with linguistics .In this regard ,several types of ambiguity can be recognized; these  include grammatical  (or structural ) ambiguity in a phrase like “new houses and shops “ which could be analyzed as either “new{houses and shops } “ ,i.e . both are new , or “{new houses }and shops” ,i.e.’ only’ the houses are new .