« previous next »
Pages: [1]

Author Topic: Is this sentence ambiguous ?  (Read 914 times)

Offline binumal

  • Jr. Linguist
  • **
  • Posts: 40
Is this sentence ambiguous ?
« on: January 01, 2018, 07:13:40 AM »
Is the following sentence ambiguous
They didn't celebrate New Year for the first time
Is this sentence ambiguous ,I can Imagine two readings for the sentence
1) It is not the case that they didn't celebrate New Year for the first time.- reading in which negation gets scope over the Sentence
2) It is the case that,for the first time they didn't celebrate New Year - Negation gets narrow scope
Thanks in advance
« Last Edit: January 01, 2018, 02:42:06 PM by binumal »
Logged

Offline Daniel

  • Administrator
  • Experienced Linguist
  • *****
  • Posts: 1814
  • Country: us
    • English
Re: Is this sentence ambiguous ?
« Reply #1 on: January 01, 2018, 08:39:08 AM »
Yes, that has both readings, a typical scope ambiguity.

(Note the typo in the example: "sentence" for "time" as written now.)
Logged
Welcome to Linguist Forum! If you have any questions, please ask.
Pages: [1]
« previous next »