Syntactic homonymy

Syntactic homonymy is the ability to build several syntactic structures based on the same sequence of language characters ^[1] . The following types of syntactic homonymy are distinguished: the ambiguity of establishing syntactic relations (arrow homonymy), the homonymy of subject and object relations (marking homonymy), and the homonymy of many different syntactic groups (constituent homonymy) ^[2] .

In the Russian tradition, there are four related terms - homonymy, polysemy, polysemy and ambiguity . The term polysemy is the broadest and indicates the existence of a unit more than one value. The term polysemy is sometimes regarded as a synonym for polysemy ^[3] , but more often it is understood as lexical polysemy ^[3] . The ambiguity of a linguistic expression or a speech work ( text ) is understood to mean the presence of several different meanings at the same time.

There are several points of view on terminology. For example, Yu. D. Apresyan distinguishes between linguistic ambiguity, ambiguity (lexical and syntactic), and speech, which arises in a statement due to the uncertainty of certain parameters of the situation ^[4] . If linguistic ambiguity is the ability of a word or expression to have different interpretations (that is, it can be argued that this is a property of linguistic units ), then speech ambiguity is the realization of this property in a particular utterance . Speech ambiguity can be unintentional (and then it will either be resolved in the course of further communication , or a communicative failure will occur), but it can also be intentional, used as a special technique. Ambiguity as a coexistence of many different interpretations of a literary text is recognized by some researchers as its inherent property: it is the simultaneous presence of two different understandings (words, expressions or the text as a whole) that creates a new meaning ^[5] . For example:

He from Germany misty brought the fruits of learning. ^[6]

It is necessary to distinguish between the resolution of lexical ambiguity (drive the stop: “overcome the distance” and “pass the point”; re-elect Petrov: “elect Petrov for another term” and “elect another person for Petrov’s post”) and syntactic ambiguity (flying planes can be dangerous: “ flying planes can be dangerous ”and“ flying on planes can be dangerous ”; a husband cannot be cheated:“ a husband must not cheat ”and“ you cannot cheat on your husband ”, etc.), as indicated, for example, by Anna A. Zaliznyak ^[7] .

In some cases, homonymy is fundamentally insoluble without additional information, for example:

And carries with him the knowledge of the muddy wave of sorrow that broke the knowledge of the heart. ^[8]

However, in real life we ​​very rarely notice syntactic ambiguity, since our language processor is able to instantly analyze not only the syntactic structure , but also the situation, context , and draw logical conclusions about the meaning of the sentence. To teach this a computer analyzer is extremely difficult ^[9] .