An Analysis of Structural Ambiguity in French

The purpose of this study is to analyze the structure of
certain types of ambiguous French sentences in standard written
and spoken French. There are four levels at which ambiguity can
occur: at the lexical, surface-structure, underlying-structure,
and phonological levels. The emphasis is on structural ambiguity.
This study is done by analyzing cases where adjectives, pronouns ,
verbs and invariable words are responsible for the ambiguities.
Ambiguous sentences at the surface-structure level are represented
on tree diagrams whereas those at the underlying-structure level
have to be explained by deriving the different interpretations
from the deep structures underlying different sentences. Clues or
methods to eliminate or explain ambiguity are proposed. There is
a brief discussion of psychological implications involved in
sentence ambiguities and of the relationship between surface and
underlying structure in linguistics and psychology. The analysis
of structural ambiguity also reveals some pedagogical applications
in the teaching of foreign languages. Examples are given to show
how teachers could make use of ambiguous sentences to improve the
students' comprehension of the target language.
This analysis shows native speakers or students of French how
the language functions when it manifests certain patterns which
are conducive to ambiguity.