Preliminary Study Of Chinese Ambiguity In Shortened Sentences Of Double-Symbols

In the past study of ambiguity in Chinese, some phenomenon and causes of ambiguous words that exist in words, phrases, single sentences, complex sentences are listed out. However, no special study is given to ambiguous words in shortened sentences, or such study is neglected. In this article the theory of functional grammar and cognition grammar is applied to the analysis on three shortened structures for their ambiguity. And some causes of ambiguity and comprehension tendency are explained from different aspects of semantics, function and cognition.The ambiguity in"bu…bu…"comes from its interior structure containing two compound, conditional semantics. From language subjective point, this structure is further classified into four aspects: objective compound, objective condition, subjective compound and subjective condition on their original compound and conditional compound. And it is clearly pointed out that ambiguity appears only in subjective patterns. The author here explains by introducing language subjective theory why subjective causes come in three aspects of"Comprehension of Similarity in Semantics","Separated Syntactic Combination"and"Often in Critical Comments", and gives an account of the conditions where"bu…bu…"exists. Finally, prototype theory helps us understand the non-typical nature of the subjective kind."zai…ye…"structure has two ambiguous meanings. 1) the ambiguity of"go along or go against". In"zai…ye…"structure, their appear two structured isomerism, respectively referring to along-supposition and against-supposition. Firstly, the author gives analysis separately on these two structures. And secondly some causes are illustrated to affect the understanding of ambiguity within language hierarchy, the function of ending"le2", the corresponding relations between the fore part to post part, and focus stress. Against-structure and along-structure of"zai…ye…"function differently in language use, therefore there exist differences for the choices of language hierarchy. The ambiguity of"zai…ye…"with ending"le2"only gives along-sense instead of against-sense. Thus explanation is made after the theory of three conceptual domains. When the part before or after"zai…ye…"with one way corresponding relationship, the sentence has one meaning. When the part with two-way corresponding relationship, the sentence has ambiguity. 2) The ambiguity of subjunctive and active, which lies in the"against–structure""zai…ye…", is mainly described and classified from its external language environment.The ambiguity of"yi…jiu…"structure, which leads us to classify from its"middle item"into normal along-structure and subnormal against-structure, may be differentiated from the meanings of the vocabulary, kinds of sentences, focus stress, subjective comments of the fore part or the post part to the affection of their ambiguity. Declarative, assertive structure of"yi…jiu…"is generally consistent with normal along-relationships; Questions have two kinds. In declarative sentence, normal along-structure relationship presents natural stress, while subnormal against-structure presents comparative stress. Whether or not the stress comes on the fore part or the latter part lies in the conditional specificity and resultant specificity given by the speaker. Obviously subjective comments provide more functions to semantic relations of"yi…jiu…"structure.