TYPES OF LINGUISTIC AMBIGUITY

The phenomenon of ambiguity of the Chinese language is analyzed in the article. It has been proved that in the course of speech communication a word, a phrase, a sentence or even a segment sometimes contains two or more meanings which can be interpreted in two or more ways. The article deals with different types of ambiguity in the speech of the modern Chinese. The classification of ambiguity types has been studied. By studying the types of one can see the relationship between ambiguity and phonetics, content, grammar as well as pragmatism. The ambiguity caused by the pronunciation and the meaning of the word can be explained by the fact that in ancient times the Chinese used limited material to determine the broad content range in the writing of Chinese characters, which inevitably caused duplication and ambiguity of their meaning. The relationship between linguistic forms and the content alongside with the state of semantic relations in grammatical research have been analyzed in the article; some other linguistic issues that will contribute to the further study of theories and methods of grammatical research have been examined. Due to the constant changes happening within the Chinese language, there are many similar words as well as homophones (the same phonetic expression which expresses different meanings). The conditions causing ambiguity in communication: as soon as the text appears, the ambiguity disappears. Some examples that often confuse foreigners who study the Chinese language have been presented in the article; the designated examples revealing ambiguity have been analysed.