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In a message dated 6/4/2002 7:42:28 AM Central Daylight Time, ram@hidden.email writes:However, I don't consider "house boat" to be ambiguous - I consider it Ouch! As we say in logic class, ambiguity is having more than one meaning, vagueness is not quite having even one. Ambiguity is absolute: the existence of two or more readings of a phrase (I suppose that you could relativize it by adding "that make sense in the context," but that spoils all the fun). Vagueness is relative and unredeemably so: less precise (specific, ...) than desirable for cooperative conventions. It justifies inferences of either ignorance or opposition. It is not clear whether "house boat" in English is ambiguous any mmore, it is now a lexical item without a lot of reference to its history. If it does still have any connection with its history, then (if you thing that meaning goes to deep sentential versions of nouns) it would be ambiguous or (more likely) have the connection spelled out in the process of derivation. It would not ordinarily be vague, although we can construct cases, as always. The existence in Katanda of a marker for unspecific relation does not mean that the _expression_ using it is vague -- unless the context requires a specific relation, which apparently not all do (else why have a word for unspecific ones?) |