Structural ambiguity

Definition

Ambiguity that arises from the fact that two or more different syntactic structures can be assigned to one string of words. The expression old men and women is structurally ambiguous because it has the following two structural analyses:

(i)  old [men and women]
(ii) [old men] and women

Ambiguous expressions that are not structurally ambiguous display lexical ambiguity.

Links

• Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics

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