From: epstein@sunc2.cs.uiuc.edu (Milt Epstein)
Subject: Re: Ambiguity a goal of language
Keywords: ambiguity, clarity, communication, effectiveness
Reply-To: epstein@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 05:19:26 GMT

In <70263@bcsaic.UUCP> rwojcik@atc.boeing.com (Richard Wojcik) writes:

>In article <1992Mar29.053517.23554@sunb10.cs.uiuc.edu> epstein@cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>
>>I am a little puzzled by this thread.  Most of the posters seem to be
>>saying that ambiguity is essential to a language in the sense that
>>language evolved to be ambiguous out of necessity (i.e. that ambiguity
>>is essential out of design, not as a desired property).
>
>>My view is more that ambiguity is impossible to avoid in a language,
>>and hence people take advantage of this unavoidable property at times.
>
>Not so.  Language could have evolved in such a way that there were no
>ambiguity at all--each signal-meaning pair would have a unique form.  Such a
>system would not be as versatile at communicating ideas, but it would have
>some uses, surely.

Could you provide some support for your claims here?  Why do you think
language could have evolved that way?  And why would such a system not
be as versatile at communicating ideas?  In another post I said that
my thinking on this issue wasn't so clear, so perhaps some more
discussion of it will help clear it up.


>>...However, I think
>>the main purpose of language is clear communication, and in that view,
>>ambiguity does not lead to more effective communcation.
>
>Again, you seem to totally discount the fact that languages don't have to
>communicate everything.  Animals have much more restricted systems of
>communication which are, nevertheless, effective at communicating what they
>are intended to communicate.  There is no reason why human language has to be
>so rich--other than perhaps the evolutionary edge it provides us.

I never said that languages need communicate everything (here or
earlier).  The issue I was addressing was more whether ambiguity is a
design feature of language, not whether it was good or bad.  I agree
that we are very effective at interpreting ambiguous language.
However, certainly if language were not ambiguous, there would be less
mistakes made in understanding, and hence clearer communication.  By
that definition of effective communication (as opposed to, say,
situations where one does not want to leave one definitive
interpretation), ambiguity would seem to be a detriment.


>>Also, I do not see how "ambiguity renders language extremely efficient
>>at conveying information."  It is true that "one expression can convey
>>many different meanings", but usually the goal is to convey only one
>>particular meaning, in which case ambiguity is a detriment.
>
>The beauty of natural language is that usually it only does convey one
>meaning.  But the form used to convey that meaning can also be used to convey
>other meanings in other (discourse) contexts.  You have a one-to-many
>relationship between forms and meanings rather than a one-to-one relationship.
>Surely you understand why the former is more efficient.

If I understand you correctly, you seem to be saying that it is more
efficient in a representational/forms sort of way.  I can see that.  I
suppose I was thinking more in terms of processing during
comprehension (since that is my main interest), and I did not see how
ambiguity could make comprehension more efficient.  And stop calling
me "Surely".

-- 
Milt Epstein
Department of Computer Science
University of Illinois
epstein@cs.uiuc.edu