Analyze the causes of ambiguity in the following sentences, and try to make some alterations to eliminate the ambiguity. (a) John ran the car race. (b) They saw her duck.
(a)Due to polysemy of ‘run ’., we have no way to determine whether John ‘ participated’ in the race or ‘organised’ the race. We can say: John ran the car race and won the first place to eliminate the ambiguity.(b) Due to the homonymy of duck, Duck can be understood as a noun meaning of a ‘kind of poultry’ or as a verb meaning ‘lower one’s head or body quickly, dodge’. We can say: They saw her duck swimming in the river to eliminate the ambiguity.