Language::Ambiguity Strikes!

Posted: Tue Apr 18, 09:53 PM

Okay, I take a CS class with Lillian Lee. She’s nuts, and that’s what makes her fun. Anyways, while the topic of possible sentence ambiguity came up during a lecture on Tree Adjoining Grammars (TAGs), and she unveiled her “favorite sentence, modulo great literature” for the class.

Consider the various possible meanings of the sentence:

I saw her duck with the telescope.

Got it? Good.

Now, I’d like you to just consider for a second.

What the possible other meanings of the word “saw” are.

And then, look at the sentence again.

• Isn't this del.icio.us?
• Can you digg it?
• Seed the newsvine?