Ambiguity Tests and How to Fail Them

A number of tests used by linguists to distinguish a.mbtffiitf from lack of specification are described and illustrated, wi 1 brief critical commentary. The tests appeal to semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic principles. Special attention is given to tests using transformations whose applicability depends upon identity of sense; these tests can help to decide the status of examples for which other tests give no evidence. But there is a class of cases where the identity.tests predict ambiguity, even though common sense (and tests not involving identity of sense) says that these cases involve special uses of sentences, not meaning proper, and other tests for ambiguity agree, These cases are characterized, and their anomalous behavior is explained on the grounds that they require suspension of the sincerity principle of conversation (that one means what one says). 1, Background. The notion of ambiguity plays a fundamental role in syntactic argumentation. Indeed, much recent discussion turns on whether particular examples are or are not ambiguous, and if they nre, in '-, . what way. The existence of a rule of neg-Transportation depends ultimately on whether sentences like (1) I don't think she's bald. are ambiguous (betveen a reading like that of Itts not the case that I think she's bald and one like that of I .think she's not bald) and the treatment of sentence types and speech acts involves a decision about how many readings examples like (2) Why don't you ask her for help? have (question and suggestion, in this case). The cases can be listed for pages~ phrasal conjunction, tough Movement, Psych Movement, sloppy identity, rererential opacity, and so on. In each case, the question is how many underlying (or semgntic) representations