Author Topic: X-bar theory and ambiguous sentences  (Read 5795 times)

Offline ironclad85

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X-bar theory and ambiguous sentences
« on: January 21, 2016, 05:18:58 PM »
Hi all!

I'm new here and new to syntax as well.
I have to give a short but important presentation (accounts for 20% of my grade) in front of my class in two days and I'm nervous. My professor wants me to explain the ambiguity of the following sentence using the X-bar theory with trees:

Jane will eat the cake on the table.

I of course understand the two possible meanings but have no idea how to explain these differences in trees. Actually, I'm still terrible at making trees. Please help me out, this counts for 20% of my grade!

Trees and explanations welcome! my professor is moving way too fast!

thanks in advance
jane (that also happens to be my name)

Offline Daniel

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Re: X-bar theory and ambiguous sentences
« Reply #1 on: January 21, 2016, 07:27:11 PM »
We won't do homework for you here. If you have a specific question (preferably one about these topics in general, not solving this HW assignment), we can discuss it.

Syntax trees are unambiguous because they clearly represent groupings of words (as constituency).

One way to approach this is to make a tree for the sentence and then figure out what reading it represents. Then work out what the other tree would look like.

As a practical approach (that you might or might not find intuitive), you can ask yourself: what does the [ambiguously attached part of the sentence] modify? That's a start.


A common example is:
The man saw the dog with the binoculars.

We can clarify the ambiguity using bracketing:
The man [saw the dog] with the binoculars.
The man saw [the dog with the binoculars].

Bracketing like that is equivalent to tree structure (plus whatever other structure is needed to make the full tree of course).

Any more help beyond this would be too much for this assignment and take away your chance to learn with it.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2016, 07:29:55 PM by djr33 »
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Offline ironclad85

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Re: X-bar theory and ambiguous sentences
« Reply #2 on: January 21, 2016, 10:18:33 PM »
I see, the advice is helpful and at least puts me in the right direction.