Exploring Ambiguity Based on the Grammatical Differences between Chinese and English
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
Journal of Educational System
Volume 2, Issue 1, 2018, PP 27-33
Exploring Ambiguity Based on the Grammatical Differences
between Chinese and English
Feng Li
School of Foreign Language, Jinling Institute of Technology, Nanjing, China
*Corresponding Author: Feng Li, School of Foreign Language, Jinling Institute of Technology,
Nanjing, China
ABSTRACT
Natural language is highly ambiguous, i.e. linguistic ambiguity is very common at every level ---
phonological, lexical, pragmatic and syntactic. This is true of both English and Chinese. Being two widely
different languages, English and Chinese possess distinctive grammatical features. This article explores
ambiguity from the perspective of grammatical differences between Chinese and English, and identifies the
interesting finding that a syntactically ambiguous expression in one language may be perspicuous when put
in the other; in other words, syntactic ambiguity in one language may be avoided when expressed in the
other.
Keywords: syntactic ambiguity; grammatical differences; Chinese; English.
INTRODUCTION understand relations and to see things in their
appropriate contexts, which means that events
Chinese is distinct from English in many
do not occur in isolation from other events, but
aspects, e.g., in writing systems (the former
are instead embedded in a meaningful whole,
ideography, the latter phonography) and in
while a Western dialectic is very “aggressive” in
pronunciation systems (the former characterized
seeking to decontextualize and resolve
by single-syllable words and four tones: level,
contradictions.
rising, falling and rising, and falling, the latter
featured with many multi-syllable words, stress, The Chinese scholar Peng and his colleagues
and intonation). However, the most complicated (2006: 256) proposed that in Western dialectical
and intriguing difference between the two may thinking, which is fundamentally consistent with
lie in how they are organized to express or to the laws of formal logic, contradiction requires
communicate, i.e. in their grammatical synthesis rather than mere acceptance, while in
structures, which, undoubtedly, have much to do Chinese naive dialecticism does not regard
with their speakers’ thought and thinking styles. contradiction as illogical and tends to accept the
contradictions in a harmoniously unified way.
People’s perception and thought about their
living environment has a great influence on their Simply speaking, Western thought is
lexicon (e.g. abundance or scarcity of some characterized by being rule- or law-orientated,
types of terminology), and their language’s detailed, analytical and logical, while Chinese
implicature (e.g. “red” possesses very positive thought is featured with context or situation
implications of “prosperity, jubilation and specific, holistic, intuitive, and compatible. We
fortune” in Chinese besides referring to a color). cannot conclude what exactly Chinese language
In the case of grammatical structures, people’s structure is supposed to be, but the Chinese
thought and thinking styles play an important thinking style tells us that its structure probably
role as well. Nisbett (2003: 27) found that the imposes less emphasis on grammatical forms,
Chinese have developed a type of dialectical and more on language contexts and on
thought that seeks to use contradiction to wholeness of objects and events. Western
Journal of Educational System V2 ●I1 ●2018 27Exploring Ambiguity Based on the Grammatical Differences between Chinese and English
thinking style determines that the grammar of utterance token can be judged true of one
English may be analytical, logical and less situation, or the other way around, depending on
dependent on context, which requires it to how it is interpreted.” In this sense, ambiguity
possess some grammatical forms so that has been the source of much frustration,
messages can be understood correctly even bemusement and amusement for philosophers,
isolated from contexts. Tense for verbs, as one linguists, cognitive scientists, authors, poets, etc.
of the salient differences in grammar between Nowadays, many ambiguous expressions have
Chinese and English, can offer us more insight emerged in Chinese internet and Chinese
and understanding. English verbs change their people’s life for the purpose of irony, sarcasm,
forms in different temporal situations. In other self-mocking, etc. Interestingly, many of these
words, the form of one verb can roughly tell us Chinese ambiguous expressions would not be
that it happened, happens or will happen. In ambiguous at all if they were put in English,
Chinese, comparatively, verbs remain which can be accounted for structurally based
unchanged formally in any situations, so we on the grammatical differences between Chinese
have to resort to extra adverbs to discern a past and English. This article intends to explore these
event, a present event or a future event. ambiguous expressions based on the
grammatical differences between Chinese and
e.g. 他（昨天）吃一个苹果。
English.
He ate an apple (yesterday).
ANALYSES ON AMBIGUITY BASED ON
他（每天）吃一个苹果。 GRAMMATICAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN
He eats an apple (every day). CHINESE AND ENGLISH
他（明天）吃一个苹果。 People’s perception and understanding of their
living environment exerts a great influence on
He will eat an apple (tomorrow). what terminology they like to use, what
The Chinese verb ‘吃’ (eat) remains the same implications they prefer, and even what
formally no matter whether yesterday, tomorrow structure they employ to communicate
or every day while the English verb ‘eat’ subconsciously. Understandably, there are both
changes accordingly in different tenses. The similarities and differences in how people
three forms of ‘eat’ can reveal the approximate perceive and understand their world across
time of this behavior even without the time cultures. Therefore, we can find out that
adverbs ‘yesterday’, ‘every day’ or ‘tomorrow’. languages always have something in common
Actually, besides verbs, there is no formal even though obvious variations arise across
change for Chinese nouns, adjectives or them.
pronouns as well. This feature of no formal Chinese and English are so distinctive that it is
change in Chinese seems to contribute much to not appropriate to parse all Chinese sentences by
Chinese ambiguity. resorting to English grammar. But apparently,
It is commonly accepted that natural language is Chinese is in possession of as many content
highly ambiguous phonologically, lexically, and words such as nouns, verbs, adjectives,
structurally. Ambiguity is generally taken to be a pronouns, etc. as English. More importantly,
property possessed by signs that bear multiple many sentential structures (such as SVO) are
interpretations. According to Wasow et al. displayed similarly between Chinese and
(2005: 265), “an expression is ambiguous if it English. Therefore, some Chinese ambiguous
has two or more distinct denotations --- that is, sentences can be understood easily by English
if it is associated with more than one region of speakers, e.g.
meaning space.” Ambiguity is constitutive of On the subway, a girl is speaking to her
communication and productive in legal, boyfriend on the phone.
political, philosophical, literary discourses. 如果你到了，我没到，你等着；
Kennedy (2011: 508) defines ambiguity as a
If you get there but I am not there, you wait;
subtype of uncertainty “which manifests itself as
variation in truth conditions: one and the same 如果我到了，你没到，你等着！
28 Journal of Educational System V2 ●I1 ●2018Exploring Ambiguity Based on the Grammatical Differences between Chinese and English
If I get there but you are not there, you wait. in English, ambiguity disappears. Some
The same expression ‘你等着’ (you wait) has illustrations are demonstrated below.
two different denotations, one normal meaning No Plural Forms for Nouns
of ‘wait’, the other carrying a threatening 她做了两个孩子爱吃的的菜。
implication. Despite different languages, the
In Chinese, nouns remain the same formally,
humor of this ambiguous sentence can be
whether for plural meaning or for singular
perceived and appreciated easily by speakers of
meaning, just revealed as ‘孩子’ (kid) and ‘菜’
both languages. However, there are also many
(dish) in this sentence. So, it is difficult to judge
differences between the two languages which
whether the previous quantifier ‘两个’ (two)
may produce some expressions ambiguous in
modifies ‘孩子’ (two kids) or ‘菜’ (two dishes).
one language but perspicuous in the other. As
Thus, ambiguity arises in this sentence. If in
analyzed in the first part, Chinese is holistic and
English, there would be less ambiguity.
inferential, so its interpretation depends greatly
on context or situation, which is different from She cooked two kids’ favorite dish.
English, a language analytical and logical even Or:
in isolation. Let’s take a simple example to She cooked two kid’s favorite dishes.
explain.
No Case Changes for Pronouns
他 是 我的 男朋友。
Chinese pronouns do not distinguish subjective
He be my boyfriend. case from objective case. Usually, the position
This Chinese sentence is ambiguous if not put in of one pronoun shows that it is a subject or an
a certain context or if not given extra object.
complementation of ‘time’. In English the For example:
sentence should be expressed as:
我喜欢读书。
He is my boyfriend.
I like reading.
他（现在now）是 我的 男朋友。
妈妈喜欢我。
Or
Mum likes me.
He was my boyfriend.
Put in front of the sentence, ‘我’ is in subjective
他（曾经before）是 我的 男朋友。 case ‘I’, while behind a transitive verb, it is in
In Chinese, ‘是’ (be) remains unchanged objective case ‘me’. But as for the question
formally wherever and whenever the situation pronoun ‘谁’, the same as other pronouns, it
takes place. In order to clearly understand the carries both the subjective case (who) and the
sentence, the reader or listener has to rely on objective case (whom) in the single form. The
context or further explanation. Relatively, with only difference lies in that this pronoun may
specific formal changes of ‘be’ in different sometimes stay in front of a sentence for
tenses, English sentences both sound and look emphasis no matter whether it is a subject or an
less ambiguous, even in isolated situation. object. In this case, especially together with the
Through comparison, we can find that, unlike most common phenomenon ‘ellipsis’ in
English, Chinese nouns do not have plural Chinese, ambiguity takes place easily. For
forms, Chinese verbs do not possess inflectional instance:
changes (say, past tense, present participle, past 我最佩服两个球队，
participle, third person singular), Chinese 一是中国乒乓球队，谁都赢不了！
adjectives do not own comparative degree or
superlative degree, and Chinese pronouns do not 另一个是中国男足，谁都赢不了！
contain the objective case, subjective case or Two teams I admire most:
possessive case, though both languages share One is China Pingpong team, whoever cannot
nouns, verbs, adjectives and pronouns. Without defeat (them)!
such grammatical features as English but with
The other is China male soccer team, whomever
much ellipsis, some Chinese sentences appear
ambiguous if without context. But if expressed (they) cannot defeat!
Journal of Educational System V2 ●I1 ●2018 29Exploring Ambiguity Based on the Grammatical Differences between Chinese and English
In the parentheses is the elliptical information. The Leader and the masses
The absolutely same Chinese expression Or:
‘谁都赢不了’ can be interpreted in two ways
Lead the masses
when placed in two contexts. The first expresses
great pride in China Pingpong team, while the e.g. 阅读(n. or v.) 材料(n.)
latter exposes extreme disappointment and irony Comprehension materials
to China male soccer team. But when translated Or:
into English, with proper pronouns used and Read the materials
added, no ambiguity occurs at all.
e.g. 这个门没有锁。
One more interesting example:
‘锁’ in Chinese is similar to ‘lock’ in English,
我单身的原因有两个： functioning either as a noun or as a verb. But
一是：谁都看不上； unfortunately, Chinese ‘锁’ has no formal
二是：谁都看不上。 changes, which makes readers confused about
Watching the two expressions ‘谁都看不上’, no whether ‘锁’ in the sentence is a noun or a verb.
difference at all, we inevitably encounter Thereby, this sentence can be interpreted as:
ambiguity here. Let’s look at the English The door does not have a lock.
expressions: Or:
There are two reasons why I am still single: The door is not locked.
One is whoever does not take a fancy to (me); Nouns and verbs take up the largest proportion
The other is whomever (I) do not take fancy to. both in English and Chinese. The fact that there
The same as the previous example, in the is no any formal change for nouns and verbs in
parentheses are two elliptical pronouns and ‘谁’ Chinese brings about much ambiguity when a
takes on both cases (whoever and whomever) in word can act as both a noun and a verb. In the
the single form. Apparently, implication of self- same case, English expressions may be not
mocking and humor emerges from the ambiguous at all, because the different
ambiguous expressions. grammatical forms for English nouns and verbs
can facilitate understanding English structure
No Formal Distinction between Verbs and clearly.
Nouns
The Position of an Attributive Clause
Because there are no formal changes in verbs or
Here is another ambiguity that can be explored
nouns in Chinese, it is quite common to confuse
from the perspective of grammatical difference
a verb with a noun in a Chinese sentence if
between Chinese and English --- the position of
isolated from a certain context. Just like ‘smile’
attributive clauses, which does not concern
in English, ‘微笑’ can be a verb as well as a
formal changes of a word, but, in a larger level,
noun. But in English, ‘smile’ can be clearly
the structure of a sentence. Usually, if an
distinguished as a verb from a noun when it
attributive modifier is only made up of one or
appears in a grammatical form, say, ‘smiled’ or
two adjectives, it is placed in front of a noun to
‘smiling’, even isolated syntactically. This is not
modify the latter, which is also true of Chinese.
the case for ‘微笑’. Wherever it appears, it
But longer or more complicated attributive
always remains the unchanged forms. So,
modifiers, especially the attributive clauses, in
syntactical context or more information is
English generally are placed behind the nouns
needed to interpret whether it is a verb or a
while almost all attributive modifiers including
noun. Accordingly, sometimes ambiguity
the attributive clauses in Chinese still remain in
happens when verbs and nouns are put together,
front of the nouns. It is worth mentioning again
for you are not convinced whether there are two
that, just like Chinese verbs and Chinese nouns,
nouns or there is one verb followed by a noun.
so-called Chinese adjectives are not discernible
Similarly, English grammar can remove the
by their forms. Formally, they are apt to be
ambiguity here.
confused with nouns, just like verbs. Only when
e.g. 领导(n. or v.) 群众(n.) the auxiliary word ‘的’ is attached behind can
30 Journal of Educational System V2 ●I1 ●2018Exploring Ambiguity Based on the Grammatical Differences between Chinese and English
we conclude that this word is not a noun but an In 3), ‘咬死了猎人’ (killed the hunter),
adjective. followed by the auxiliary word ‘的’, is an
e.g. A (beautiful) flower attributive clause to modify the noun ‘狗’ (the
hound). In 4), ‘猎人的狗’ (the hunter’s hound),
一朵（美丽的）花
as a whole part, is put behind the verb ‘咬死了’
‘Beautiful’ is an adjective, while ‘美丽’ can be (killed), functioning as an object. In this parsing,
treated either as a noun, meaning ‘beauty,’ or as the auxiliary word ‘的’ after a concrete content
an adjective, meaning ‘beautiful’. Of course, in noun ‘猎人’ (the hunter) demonstrates a
this case, ‘美丽’, with the auxiliary word ‘的’ possessive case ‘猎人的’ (the hunter’s) to
attached to it, is surely an adjective. So, when explain the hound’s ownership. Hereby,
the attributive modifier is as simple as one or Interpretations go as:
two adjectives, as illustrated in the above 3). It was the hound which killed the hunter.
sentences, they are placed in front of the noun
4). The hunter’s hound was killed.
whether in English or in Chinese. However, in
Chinese the auxiliary word ‘的’ can be put Seen from these two examples, Chinese
behind one single abstract noun to demonstrate expressions with attributive clauses are likely to
an adjective, and also can be placed behind an elicit ambiguity in comprehension because
attributive clause to reveal a longer or Chinese attributive clauses stand before the
complicated attributive modifier. Thereby, nouns they intend to modify, which frequently
sometimes ambiguity emerges in Chinese when results in different parsing of the same
an attributive clause modifies a noun, for the expression. However, this type of ambiguity
reader may be bewildered at distinguishing deriving from the position of attributive clauses
adjectives from nouns. can be avoided in English grammar. Especially
in the second example, the elliptical sentence 4)
First example: is acceptable in Chinese regardless of the lack of
放弃美丽的女人让人心碎 a definite subject, which would be too
This sentence can be parsed in two ways: ungrammatical to be existent in written English.
1). [(放弃美丽)的女人]让人心碎 In turn, some syntactically ambiguous English
sentences, if expressed in Chinese, would not be
2). [放弃(美丽的女人)]让人心碎
ambiguous at all. The position of the
In sentence 1), ‘美丽’ is a noun meaning components in a Chinese sentence plays an
‘beauty’. ‘放弃美丽’ meaning ‘abandon beauty’ important role in interpreting the sentence. For
is a Chinese attributive clause to modify the example, whether the pronoun ‘我’ is a subject
following ‘女人’ (woman). But in sentence 2), ‘I’ or an object ‘me’ depends on whether it is
‘美丽’ is an adjective meaning ‘beautiful’ placed before a verb or after a verb, but ‘我’
modifying ‘女人’ (woman).Thus, this Chinese remains unchanged formally wherever it goes.
sentence can be interpreted as: So, to some extent, we can say the components
1). The woman who abandons beauty is in a Chinese sentence are not form sensitive but
heartbreaking. position sensitive. Some components of an
2). It is heartbreaking to abandon a beautiful English sentence, such as attributive modifiers,
woman. adverbial modifiers, and even some clauses, are
Second example: very free and flexible as to their positions in the
sentence, compared with their counterparts of a
咬死了猎人的狗
Chinese sentence. These components in English
This expression, without any adjective, is can be put in front of the sentence, behind the
composed of one verb (咬死了meaning ‘killed sentence and even in between the sentence,
by biting), two nouns (猎人 ‘hunter’ and狗 which does not affect the interpretation of the
‘hound’), and one auxiliary word (的). It also sentence in most cases.
can be parsed in two ways:
e.g. Mary, as well as her brother, goes to school
3). [(咬死了猎人)的狗] on foot every day.
4). [咬死了(猎人的狗)] Mary goes to school on foot every day as well
Journal of Educational System V2 ●I1 ●2018 31Exploring Ambiguity Based on the Grammatical Differences between Chinese and English
as her brother. sarcasm or self-mocking. In either way,
ambiguity is not avoided in communication. As
The two sentences mean the same, though the
Wasow said (2015), ‘ambiguity avoidance is
adverbial modifier ‘as well as her brother’ is
overrated’. So, many researchers (Levinson,
placed differently in each. However, sometimes
2000; Piantadosi et al., 2012) tried to explain
the position flexibility may bring about
why natural languages are ambiguous. This
confusion about which part the modifier actually
article explored ambiguity from a novel
intends to modify.
perspective --- the grammatical differences
e.g. Tom hit the boy with a ball. between Chinese and English.
In this sentence, is ‘with a ball’ an adverbial Chinese is a language with little emphasis on
modifier to modify ‘how Tom hit’ or an forms of verbs or nouns, and its perception and
attributive modifier for ‘the boy’? In this case, comprehension impose great dependence on the
ambiguity arises. But in a Chinese sentence, holistic context or situation in which an
attributive modifiers and adverbial modifiers utterance or sentence takes place. I DO NOT
usually are placed in the positions they should KNOW WHAT HOLISTIC MEANS HERE OR
be. If the position changed, new interpretation WHAT IT CONSTRATS WITH. The fact that
might arise, because a modifier in a Chinese no tense attaches to verbs, no plural changes to
sentence is only to modify the noun closest to it. nouns, no formal distinction across nouns, verbs
Therefore, if in Chinese, this syntactic and even adjectives, etc. gives rise to some
ambiguous English sentence would not be unique sorts of ambiguity in Chinese. Apart
ambiguous at all. from that, the common phenomenon in Chinese
--- ellipsis strengthens the possibility and the
Tom hit (the boy with a ball.)
degree of Chinese ambiguity. In any Chinese
汤姆打了(拿球的男孩)。 discourse we can find many short sentences with
In Chinese, ‘with a ball’ can only modify the subjects, or objects, or pronouns omitted.
noun closest to it, i.e. ‘the boy’, not the farther Without a certain context, these ambiguous
one ‘Tom’. If we want the other interpretation, Chinese expressions are difficult to interpret
we will have to reposition ‘with a ball’ as: exactly. However, if put in English, these
(Tom with a ball) hit the boy. expressions are not ambiguous at all due to this
（汤姆用球）打了那个男孩。 language’s distinct grammatical features from
Chinese. Interestingly, in some cases, the rigid
Very interestingly, the flexibility of placing restraint on the position of attributive modifiers
attributive modifiers or adverbial modifiers in and adverbial modifiers in Chinese sentences
English sentences may contribute to syntactic seems to make less ambiguous expressions than
ambiguity while the rigid restraint of placing in English.
attributive modifiers or adverbial modifiers in Therefore, from the perspective of grammatical
Chinese sentences tend to help avoid this type of differences between English and Chinese, a
ambiguity. syntactically ambiguous expression in one
CONCLUSIONS language may be very perspicuous if put in the
other; in other words, syntactic ambiguity in one
Language is for communication and
language may be avoided when expressed in the
transmission. But intriguingly, almost all natural
other, which is the chief research interest of this
languages are highly ambiguous. So, Grice
article.
(1975: 30) proposed ‘Avoid ambiguity’ as one
of the maxims falling under the general category REFERENCES
of ‘Manner’. Nevertheless, no matter whether in [1] Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In
written discourses or in spoken utterances, Peter Cole & Jerry L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax
and semantics 3: speech acts (pp. 26-40). New
ambiguity arises phonologically, lexically,
York: Academic Press.
pragmatically, and syntactically. Most ambiguity
[2] Kennedy, C. (2011). Ambiguity and vagueness.
happens unintentionally while some ambiguity In C. Maienborn, P. Portner & K. von
appears deliberately for the sake of irony, Heusinger (Eds.), Handbook of semantics. The
32 Journal of Educational System V2 ●I1 ●2018Exploring Ambiguity Based on the Grammatical Differences between Chinese and English
Hague: Mouton de Gruyter. K. Hwang (Eds.), Indigenous and cultural
[3] Levinson, S. C. (2000). Presumptive meanings: psychology: Understanding people in context
the theory of generalized conversational (pp. 247-262). New York: Springer.
implicature. Cambridge: MIT Press. [7] Wasow, T., Amy Perfors & David Beaver
[4] Piantadosi, S. T., Harry Tily & Edward Gibson. (2005). The puzzle of ambiguity. In C. Orthan
(2012). The communicative function of Orgun & Peter Sells (Eds.), Morphology and
ambiguity in language. Cognition 122, 280- the web of grammar (pp. 265-282). Stanford:
291.
CSLI Publications.
[5] Nisbett, R. E. (2003). The Geography of
thought: How Asians and Westerners think [8] Wasow, T. (2015). Ambiguity avoidance is
differently and why. New York: Free Press. overrated. In Susanne Winkler (Ed.),
[6] Peng, K., Spencer-Rodgers, J., & Nian, Z. Ambiguity: language and communication (pp.
(2006). Naive dialecticism and the Tao of 29-47). Berlin/Boston, DE: De Gruyter
Chinese thought. In U. Kim, K. S. Yang, & K. Mouton.
Journal of Educational System V2 ●I1 ●2018 33You can also read
