A Generative Approach to Reference Ambiguity
DU Hui-fang · Journal of Northwest A&F University · 2008
Referential ambiguity refers to the linguistic phenomenon in which one pronoun can refer to two or more than two references,hence two explanations are produced.According to Chomskyan transformational-generative grammar,the transformational process is the source producing referential ambiguity,and deep structure doesn't produce one for it is the original idea in the brain.The distinctive feature of the study of structural ambiguity in this thesis is that structural ambiguity is dealt with dynamically in a generative way independent of linguistic environments.The referential ambiguity is studied in the process in which D-structure is moved,through α-movement,into S-structure to generate a written or spoken sentence,and referential ambiguity is formed in the derivation of a sentence because the ambiguous structure is a part of a whole sentence.GB theory shows itself a referential GB theory when employed to analyze referential instances.Two new concepts raised in GB theory application to referential ambiguity are: I-scope and E-scope.Both the new terms provide the evidence for a pronoun to find more than one referents inside or outside the local domain and sentence domain.In general,referential ambiguity is produced in the mechanism-the α-movement through which more than one D-structures are moved or transformed into the same one S-structure.