3.2.1. Lexical Ambiguity Based on Polysemy

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3.2.1. Lexical Ambiguity Based on PolysemyIn this section I provide some examples in which the identity of form between words of related meaning is a source of misunderstanding for the participants in the discussion. Most of them are from Lewis Carroll s works Through the Looking Glass and Alice s Adventures in Wonderland. In all these examples, the writer s logically organised mind is always at work. He finds surprising connections between the form of an expression and its semantics by applying the strict rules of Logicto language. The manner in which he plays upon latent meanings makes the readerrealise that a linguistic form may be most deceiving when least expected.

Any polysemous word is liable to ambiguity. Given that all its latent meanings co-exist in the mental lexicon, the accessing of one or another of thesemeanings when interpreting the polyseme is sometimes due to subjective rules: any interpreter may pick out the meaning most plausible to him, in accordance with

the weight he gives any disambiguating factor he may use. Sometimes the discrepancy between the meaning accessed by the locutor and that accessed by the interlocutor is so huge in everyday life that it results in misunderstanding or even in total lack of understanding. This discrepancy may be played upon by writers to

create humorous effects as Lewis Carroll does in the example below:

1). [ this is the song...][ ] only I don t sing it , he added, as an explanation.I see you don t , said Alice.If you can see whether I m singing or not, you ve sharper eyes than m

ost , Humpty Dumpty remarked severely. Alice was silent.

The source of misunderstanding between the participants in this conversation is Humpty Dumpty s accessing a meaning of see different from that intended by

Alice. In its first occurrence, see has an abstract meaning i.e. to notice . Themeaning accessed by Humpty Dumpty, i.e. to visually perceive is totally unexpected

here, given the non-visual nature of singing, the referent of this verb s directobject. The linguistic reason that makes it possible for Humpty Dumpty to pick out this meaning of see, however, is the syntactic structure in which it occurs:V + Direct Object. Direct objects very frequently have palpable entities as referents. Making such an inference, Humpty Dumpty accesses the concrete meaning ofthe word see. In this example it is worth noting that each of the two sentencesin which the verb see occurs is unambiguous to the reader. Lewis Carroll s spirit,

always at play upon words, speculates on the latent ambiguity of see, this bein

g one of the salient stylistic features in his works.In the next fragment the preposition for is used in two of its multiplemeanings:

2). [The Lion and the Unicorn are fighting.]Fighting for the crown? asked Alice.

Yes, to be sure , said the King: and the best of the joke is, that it s my crown all the while!

When Alice presumes that the Lion and the Unicorn are fighting for the crown, she actually uses the most expected meaning of for in such a situation: ifyou do something FOR someone, you do it instead of them . The White King, however,

picks out the opposite meaning of for: in order to or with the purpose to win so

mething . He sees the crown as the bone of contention for the fighters, not a value to be defended.

The simultaneous use of the two contrasting meanings of the prepositionfor above is possible due to the ambiguity created by the polysemous noun crown.

Alice uses crown as metonymically standing for royalty . The White King refers tothe crown as the golden object a king wears on his head as a symbol of his kingship . Whereas the form of the sentence stays the same, the polysemy of crown allows

for two interpretations.The three uses of the phrasal verb to grow up in the following fragment

are not ambiguous to the reader as the global linguistic context provides suffic


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ient clues for disambiguation: Alice is a little girl who is in the White Rabbit shouse now and she has drunk the content of a bottle that suddenly made her growin size. It is interesting to notice that if these contextual clues were not pr

ovided, the fragment would be ambiguous and the interpreter would have to spendsome time on the occurrences of the verb grow up to figure out its meaning eachtime it is used:

3). There ought to be a book written about me ! And when I grow up, I ll writeone but I m grown up now , she added in a sorrowful tone; at least there s no room to

grow up any more here .

Moreover, but for the contextual clues mentioned above, there would be some other structures in this fragment that would be difficult to understand: there ought to be (present or future reference?), there s no room (should it be readliterally or metaphorically?). Altogether, this is not an example of authenticambiguity as the meaning is clear every time grow up is used, but the author s drawing the reader s attention to the verb s polysemantism may be considered an ingenuous way of signalling its potential ambiguity.

In the example below, the polysemantism of the verb phrase to make a remark is the linguistic aspect played upon:

4). [The Red Queen explains to Alice what she should do in order to become a queen after moving through the chess-table squares.]

But you make no remark?

I I didn t know I had to make one just then , Alice falteredout.You should have said , the Queen went on in a tone of grave

reproof,

The discrepancy between the two uses of the verb phrase to make a remark a) to make a comment or intervene and b) to pay compliments is surprising even to the reader, as the meaning (a) grasped by Alice is much stronger than (b) in this

context and in everyday conversation as well. Such a discrepancy between the meaning initially primed by the locutor s words and that actually accessed by the interlocutor is humorous here. Such a discrepancy is a prolific source of humour in general.

I will end this section on the original use of ambiguity of polysemous w

ords by analysing an example from John Updike s Bech: A Book. Here, the meanings of the words are so subtly manipulated that the resulting meaning of the dialoguebelow is difficult to pinpoint:

5). And how did you like Mr. Taru? Petrescu asked on the way.He s a doll , Bech said.You mean a puppet?

Bech turned curiously but saw nothing in Petrescu s face that betrayed more than puzzlement over meaning. Bech said, I m sure you have a better eye for the strings than I do.

The qualifier doll is a clich in everyday conversation, used to speak well of a nice and well-meant person. Given the global context of this story, the r

eader knows that Bech did not let himself fooled by Mr. Taru s forged smile, nor did he like his arrogance and lack of education. As he is well-behaved, he couldnot use a vulgar word to express his opinion about somebody whom he has just met

and who is, after all, the Romanian Writers Union President. Therefore, he usesan ambiguous term that can be interpreted by his interlocutor either positivelyor negatively, without his having to shoulder responsibility for either of these

two interpretations. Nevertheless, it is clear that he means it ironically. What is surprising in this fragment is the meaning picked out by Petrescu, a metaphorical meaning that was not intended by Bech, who does not know much about communism and, in addition, could not afford to make critical remarks about one of hi


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s interlocutor s countrymen. Puppet is literally a hyponym of doll, but metaphorically it refers to a manipulated person . Bech knows that Petrescu is generally subtle; and now he is surprised by Petrescu s subtlety again. Even if he does not receive any feedback to show him that this is the meaning intended by Petrescu, Bech

goes on developing the metaphor around the word puppet. Petrescu, in his turn,may have understood the positive meaning of Bech s words, but as he himself did not like Mr. Taru which is not clear at all from the context could not have takensuch a remark at face value. Therefore, he tried out another path.

Updike s linguistic creativity in this fragment consists in his ability toslide ironically from the literal to the metaphorical meanings of the words dol

l and puppet in the deep structure of the text without being very clear about the way in which Petrescu understands them. In this case, ambiguity is insuperable.

In Figure 3 below, the arrows show the ways in which Bech and Petrescu mentally access the positive and the negative metaphorical meanings of doll and puppet respectively. The dotted arrows suggest that the context is not clear about whether Petrescu actually follows these paths or he only holds on to the positive meanings of the two words. In this respect, this fragment is genuinely ambiguous as the two contrasting possibilities have to be considered simultaneously:

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3.2.1. Lexical Ambiguity Based on Polysemy