AMBIGUITY

• Definition
According to www.merriam-webster.com, ambiguity is a word or
expression that can be understood in two or more possible ways
-In morphology, ‘lexical ambiguity’ is the presence of two or more
possible meanings within a single word.
-Lexical ambiguity is sometimes used deliberately to create puns and
other types of wordplay.
-According to the editors of the MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive
Sciences (2001), "True lexical ambiguity is typically distinguished from
polysemy (e.g., 'the N.Y. Times' as in this morning's edition of the
newspaper versus the company that publishes the newspaper)
 Ambiguous Trimorphemic Words
• Products of derivational morphology, particularly certain lexemes
coined by affixation, there is, again, evidence for ambiguity. One
pattern that offers relevant examples in English are deverbal
adjectives where the verbal base is preceded by the prefix ( un-) and
followed by the suffix ( -able). For example the word ‘ Unlockable’.
 Example 5 (Derivational Affixes) :

Unlockable = Un + lock + able

(Adj) (DA) (V) (DA)

This construction is referred to as ambiguous since
there are two possible orders by which the word is
formed, each resulting in a different meaning.

ADJ
ADJ

ADJ
V

DA
DA V DA V DA

UN LOCK ABLE UN LOCK ABLE

Left Branching Right branching

Meaning: ‘that can be unlocked’ Meaning: ‘that cannot be locked’