8.2.3. Controlling ambiguity

Although ambiguity is common in English sentences when claims of exemplification are combined with generalization, there are some indicators that tend to make a given interpretation more likely even though this is rarely more than a tendency. There are, of course, many contextual indicators of the correct interpretation, and these can be quite strong, but explicit verbal indication is rarely conclusive.

Probably the most important verbal indication of relative scope is the simplest, word order. All things being equal, the first quantifier phrase is understood to be the main one. This means that the passive voice plays an important role in indicating the sort of claim we wish to make since it enables us to alter word order and promote a given quantifier phrase to subject position. Subject-predicate expansion can help in the same way when it is stylistically acceptable.

The effect in subject-predicate expansion is due not only to word order but also to another syntactic indicator: quantifier phrases within relative clauses are usually understood to have narrower scope than those outside them. In the case of existentials, use of the there-is form, which typically also involves a relative clause, will accomplish the same thing as an expanded form, and usually with better style. For example, There is [or was] a reporter who interviewed each juror makes a pretty definite claim of uniformity.

In addition to such syntactic indicators, word choice can play a role. The words each, every, and all (and any when it is grammatically possible) in the case of generalizations and the words some and a in the case of existential claims lend varying degrees of force to a quantifier phrase’s claim to a wide scope. Perhaps these words never overcome the effects of word order, but they can moderate it, as may been seen with the following four restatements of the example discussed in 8.2.1:

The guiding idea here is that the word some marks a stronger claim to wide scope than the word a does and that the word each marks a stronger claim than the word every. The sentence at the upper left is the most likely to be understood as a claim of uniformly general exemplification, and the one at the lower right is the least likely to be understood to claim uniformity; the other two cases are intermediate, with word order probably beating out word choice so that the sentence at the upper right is the second most likely to be understood to involve a claim of uniformity.

But, while the choices of wording mentioned so far are perhaps never enough to overcome the effects of word order, there are other words choices that are. There is a use of the word certain that seems to function only to mark an existential quantifier phrase as having wide scope. If we add this word to the existential quantifier phrase in the sentence at the lower right, we get Each juror was interviewed by a certain reporter and this sentence stands a very good chance of being interpreted as a claim of uniform exemplification in spite of word order and other choices of wording. On the other hand, if we add or other to the existential in the top left sentence, we get Some reporter or other interviewed every juror, which is less likely to carry an implication of uniformity.

Context can also play a role in the significance of word choice. For example, if we were discussing the events surrounding a sort of sensational trial that was typical of some historical era (rather than discussing a particular example of such a trial), there would be an implicit generalization concerning such trials in what we said. The use of or other might then simply cancel a claim of uniformity with respect to trials while allowing it to be maintained with respect to jurors.