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The ambiguity in a locally ambiguous sentence briefly stays and is resolved, i.e., disambiguated, by the end of the speech. Sometimes, local ambiguities can result in "garden path" sentences, in which a structurally correct sentence is difficult to interpret because one interpretation of the ambiguous region is not the one that makes most sense.
The sentence can be read as "Reginam occidere nolite, timere bonum est, si omnes consentiunt, ego non. Contradico. " ("don't kill the Queen, it is good to be afraid, even if all agree I do not. I object."), or the opposite meaning " Reginam occidere nolite timere, bonum est; si omnes consentiunt ego non contradico.
The garden-path sentence effect occurs when the sentence has a phrase or word with an ambiguous meaning that the reader interprets in a certain way and, when they read the whole sentence, there is a difference in what has been read and what was expected. The reader must then read and evaluate the sentence again to understand its meaning.
Usually, semantic and syntactic ambiguity go hand in hand. The sentence "We saw her duck" is also syntactically ambiguous. Conversely, a sentence like "He ate the cookies on the couch" is also semantically ambiguous. Rarely, but occasionally, the different parsings of a syntactically ambiguous phrase result in the same meaning.
One's comprehension of a sentence in which a semantically ambiguous word is used is strongly influenced by the general structure of the sentence. [2] The language itself is sometimes a contributing factor in the overall effect of semantic ambiguity, in the sense that the level of ambiguity in the context can change depending on whether or not a ...
A sentence is consistent if it is true under at least one interpretation; otherwise it is inconsistent. A sentence φ is said to be logically valid if it is satisfied by every interpretation (if φ is satisfied by every interpretation that satisfies ψ then φ is said to be a logical consequence of ψ).
Semantics studies meaning in language, which is limited to the meaning of linguistic expressions. It concerns how signs are interpreted and what information they contain. An example is the meaning of words provided in dictionary definitions by giving synonymous expressions or paraphrases, like defining the meaning of the term ram as adult male sheep. [22]
For example, in the sentence, "the horse raced past the barn fell", raced is initially interpreted as a past tense verb, but in this sentence, it functions as part of an adjective phrase. [12] Since parsing is used to identify parts of speech, these sentences challenge the parsing ability of the reader.