Ministry of Higher Education

And Scientific Research

University of Al-Mustansiriyah
College of Basic Education

Department of English

A Semantics Study of Some

Confused Words in English

A Research Project Submitted to Council of Department

of English – College of Basic Education

By

Noor Hussein Saab

Supervised
By
Inst.Habar H. Jassim
Dedication
To our parents who taught me

To our brothers and sisters

To our friends in college

To every body who has helped me to finish this research

A knowledgment
I would like to thank our dear supervisor (Inst.Habar H.
Jassim) for helping me accomplish this valuable project.
Thanks go to the head of the English Language
Department Language and all the staff of the English
language Department in general. I am grateful to the
efforts of every one who contributed to me education
through out these years, I also thank my family and
friends to complete my study.

8
 Contents

Subject Page

Dedication 1

A knowledgment 2

1 . Introduction 4-5

2 . The Aim of Study 6

3 . Defining ambiguity 7 –9

4 . Meaning of Ambiguity 9 – 10

5 . Homophones 10 – 11

6 . Homonyms 12

7 . Polysemy 12 – 13

8 . Context and Meaning 14 – 15

9 . Ambiguity vs. vagueness 16 – 17

10 . Sources of ambiguity 17 - 19

11 . Confused words 19 – 20

12 . Understanding frequently confused words 20 – 21

13 . Commonly confused words 21 - 22

Conclusion 23

Reference 24 - 27

8
 1 . Introduction

In second or foreign language learning, learning synonyms

is not uncommon in vocabulary learning (Hashemi and
Gowdasiaei, 2005; Webb, 2007). However, clear differentiation
and proper use of near synonyms the most common error made
by their students. Learners are prone to assuming that synonyms
behave identically in all contexts (Martin, 1984). to confuse
learners

(Martin, 1984). For example, both emphasis and stress describe

“special attention or importance”. The verbs lay, place, and put
can collocate with “emphasis on” and “stress on”; however,
“place stress on” is a rare expression Without usage information,
synonyms “usually leave the student mystified” (Martin, 1984).
Verbs construct and establish illustrate the fact that synonyms do
not always have the same collocates (Webb, 2007). Although
both words share the same meaning of “build”, in practice, they
are not interchangeable in the collocations “establish contact”
and “construct system” Give Me Example (Huang et al., 2017)
is one of the few systems. It offers students suggestions of
example sentences for confusing words and helps them to
choose proper words for fill-in-the-blank multiple-choice
questions Give Me Example aims to provide opportunities for

8
learners to self-learn the nuances between confusing words by
comparing and contrasting the suggested example sentences.
investigated the effect of using translation tasks in language
learning. With the integration of the translation task, learners
were asked to produc a second language (L2) text conditioned
on a given first language (L1) sentence. It is one of effective
ways to learn word usage by producing a good translation. In
other words, we intentionally move from a receptive to a
productive learning task. This observation is particularly true of
the English language. For instance, the sentence below is
ambiguous:

1 . I saw the bank this morning.

The ambiguity in the above sentence comes from the word bank
which has several meanings. A dictionary entry for bank
contains different meanings like: financial institution; side of a
river; place for storing things, as well as other meanings as in a
mass of earth, cloud or fog (Longman active study dictionary,
2008 p. 53). A question then arises as to which of these myriads
of meaning was intended by the user of the above sentence,
especially as each of them can pass as a possible interpretation
of the construction.

8
 2 . The Aim of study

The concept of semantic analysis of ambiguity aims

at establishing and enhancing a better approach of
comprehension of the language in general. The benefit of
such short study is to illustrate some of the two
categories of the concept ambiguity the first is the
(( intentional )) and the second is the (( un intentional )).

The intentional category of ambiguity helps use to

cope with literature's

8
3 . Ambiguity' Definition

The simplest definition of ambiguity reads that an

expression is ambiguous if the expression has more than one
meaning (Gillion 1990:394). Ambiguity does not only concern
meaning but rather the interpretations that can be made by the
reader/listener. We distinguish certain types of ambiguity, so in
order to understand the concept better, it is advisable to point
them out. Considering the written language, which this paper
focuses upon, we differentiate two main types of ambiguity: the
lexical and the structural. In lexical ambiguity the double
meaning derives from the meanings of the words themselves
(Stageberg 1958:479). This means that the numerous meanings
of a certain word can lead to ambiguity. In the case of the lexical
ambiguity we can further distinguish two types: homonymy and
polysemy (Durda, et al. 2010:1). If we take homonymous words
into account we have multiple unrelated meanings, for instance
take the word bank, which mayt refer either to a financial
institution or to the edge of a river. Encountering such a word in
a sentence with an unknown context we experience a sensation
of doubt as we might be unable to interpret the sentence

8
correctly. On the other hand, polysemous words have different
related meanings, called senses. A good example is the word
foot, as in the foot of a person or the foot of a bed or form of
measurement. An analysis of nearly 5000 English words
revealed that 7.4 correspond to more than one entry in the
dictionary, and are therefore classified as homonyms. However,
84 of the dictionary entries have multiple senses (Rodd, Gaskell,
& Marslen-Wilson 2004:90). Finally, it is also worth noting that
lexical ambiguity, then, derives from the meaning of words not
their structures (Stageberg 1978:40). Structural ambiguity is the
result of the particular arrangement of words in a sentence. In
Stageberg's (1978) subdivision, there are at least three types of
structural ambiguity. The first is called syntactic ambiguity,
which occurs when the grammatical order permits two or more
meanings to emerge. For instance,

For Example:-

2 . A fat ladies' man allows two rather different

interpretations. One interpretation of this sentence is that a fat
man likes women and is liked by them, whereas another one can
refer to a man that likes fat ladies (and is liked by such ladies,
too). Without the supplied context all of these meanings are
possible with such a structure. Secondly, we encounter class
ambiguity, which deals with the fact that certain words may be
classified as more than one part of speech, for instance the word
empty can be either a verb (to empty a box), an adjective (an

8
empty box) or a noun (empties, meaning empty bottles). The
sentence sequence and the knowledge of its constituents is
crucial in understanding the meaning of the sentence.
Let us consider the example They are encouraging reports,
in which the word encouraging may be either a verb, as in
someone is encouraging reports, or an adjective, as in the reports
are encouraging (Hamidi 2009:7). As we can see, it is all a
matter of perspective and familiarity with parts of speech.
Lastly, Stageberg (1978:44) distinguishes vocal ambiguity,
which is closely related to stress, pitch or pausing. Written
language does not indicate (there are no markings) stress or
pitch, so it is the reader's decision what meaning is intended. Let
us consider another example: Girl watcher. One more time the
meaning is not instantly obvious as it depends on the stress
which way this sentence is going to head.

4 . Meaning of Ambiguity

Ambiguity refers to a situation where a word or construction

“expresses more than one meaning,” (Crystal, 2008 p.22). An
ambiguous word or structure, therefore, has more than one
possible interpretation. Again, linguists generally differentiate
between two types of ambiguity viz: lexical and structural
ambiguities (Jackson & Amvèla, 2001; Akmajian et al., 2004;
Ndimele, 2007; Saeed, 2008; Crystal, 2008; Umera-Okeke,
2008). Lexical ambiguity is caused by the presence of one word

8
which may be Lexical Sources of Ambiguity in English and
Daily Communication interpreted in two or more different ways
within a single construction while structural ambiguity takes
place when no particular word is ambiguous rather the
“ambiguity is due to structural relations in the sentence,”
(Akmajian et al., 2004

p.242). Hence, the use of bank as in the above sentence

illustrates the case of lexical ambiguity while structural
ambiguity may be found in any of the sentences below:

3 . He killed the woman with a knife.

4 . Call me a taxi.

5 . Flying planes can be dangerous. 6 . Visiting relatives

can be boring.

5 . Homophones

When linguists talk about homophones, they usually refer to

situations where two or more words have different spelling but
still possess identical sounds. This explanation excludes those
cases where semantically unrelated words are both spelt and
pronounced alike. Such words are better treated as homonyms.

Table1 shows examples of words that constitute homophones.

Word1 meaning Word2 meaning transcription

8
 aisle a passageway isle an island [ ail ]

aural about hearing oral about speech [ↄ:rǝl ]

Table 1. Examples of Homophones
Homophonous words by their nature are not usually
ambiguous when they are written because their spellings often
provide a clue to the meaning intended by the user, although
sometimes spelling errors also occur. But once they are spoken
(as one can find in a dictation class), the listener finds it difficult
knowing the particular meaning intended by the speaker. This is
illustrated in the table below:

Spoken Forms Written Equivalents

[hi: went tǝ δi: ail jestǝdei] He went to the aisle/isle yesterday.
[δǝ gз:l wɒz fæsineitid bai mai The girl was fascinated by my
ↄ:rǝl skil] aural/oral skill

[δǝ flauǝ iz tu: ikspensiv] The flour/flower is too expensive.

[δǝ bↄi wɒz puld aut ǝv δǝ si:] The buoy/boy was pulled out of the sea.
[mǝust hɒspitǝlz dǝunt ju:z biǝ Most hospitals don’t use bier/beer very
veri ɒfn] often.

Table 2. Sentences Containing Homophonous Words

Examples:-

7 . place ( location ) and plaice ( the fish )

8 . pear ( fruit ) and pair ( a couple )

9 . see ( to see ) and sea ( ocean )

8
Homonyms

The true nature of homonyms has been misunderstood by

many writers. To some, homonyms include cases where words
have identical spelling (i.e. homographs) and/or where the words
have identical sounds (homophones). This view is however
wrong because doing so will only amount to subsuming what
should ordinarily be treated as real homonyms within
polysemy. A better approach would have been to distinguish
homonyms from polysemy. This is particularly important given
the fact that polysemous words mostly result from a
metaphorical extension of meaning (Ndimele, 2007).

Examples:-

10 . Air – oxygen / a liting tune

11 . Arm – body part / division of a company

12 . Band – a musical group / a ring

7 . Polysemy

Polysemy refers to “words or other items of language with

two or more senses” (McArthur, 1996 p.715). The term was
taken from Greek poly i.e. many and semeion meaning sign. So

8
polysemy is used for situations where “the same word has two or
more different meanings” (Jackson & Amvèla, 2001 p.58). But it
needs pointing out that polysemous words often have related
meanings. It is this relatedness of meaning that distinguishes
polysemy from homonymy. According to Saeed (2008), “There
is a traditional distinction made in lexicology between
homonymy and polysemy…..polysemy is invoked if the senses
are judged to be related…polysemous senses are listed under the
same lexical entry while homonymous senses are given separate
entries (p.64).

word Meaning 1 Meaning 2

barrel part of a gun a large storage vessel
corn a kind of grain a formation like grain
ear part the human body part of a plant
foot part of the human body part of a hill or table
glass reading glass a drinking vessel
head leader of a group part of the human body
mouth part of the human body part of a bottle/river, etc
Table 3: Examples of Polysemous Words

As the above table illustrates, each of the polysemous words

has different but related senses or meaning. Ambiguity arises
when other words that occur with the polysemous words fail to

8
provide sufficient clue to clarify the meaning of the key words
as the sentences below illustrate:

13 . I need the paper.

14 . There is a mouse under the table.

15 . My glasses have broken.

16 . Refill the barrel.

8 . Context and Meaning

It is no longer moot from the foregoing discussion that the

use of homography, homophony, homonymy and polysemy in
sentences can result in ambiguity. This supports the earlier
position taken in this paper that words, when devoid of their
contextual details, become ambiguous. When the meaning of a
word is unclear, a skillful language user tries to work it out by
looking at other words that occur with it. He or she often pins
down the meaning of the word by considering it in relation to
other words within the text. Text here refers to the “actual
instance of written or spoken data” and should not be restricted
to only written material (Bloor & Bloor, 2007 p.29). Words that
co-occur with a particular word usually form the local context of
that word and they can help in understanding its meaning. The
key word has to be understood using the co-text. Conversation or
discourse analysts use co-text to refer to that “relevant text or

8
discourse of which a sentence etc is a part” (Matthews, 2007
p.85). The two sentences below remain ambiguous until the full
context is provided to make their meaning clear. Lexical Sources
of Ambiguity in English and Daily Communication

17 . John kicked the bucket.

18 . Mary is late.

19 . Mary is late to work today.

Dash (2008) has provided four types of context which can

help in clarifying the meaning of an unfamiliar word. These are
local context, sentential context, topical context and global
context. When the meaning of a word poses any problem to the
reader or listener the person can check the surrounding words to
understand its meaning. Such words according to Dash
constitute the local context. But if the local context fails to
provide a sufficient clue to the meaning of the word, then the
person should consider sentential context (i.e. words that are not
very close to the key word but Lexical Sources of Ambiguity in
English and Daily Communication may still help in clarifying its
meaning). When these two fail, Dash suggests the use of topical
and global context. Topical context talks about the theme of the
text while global context refers to extra-linguistic knowledge as
in the sentence about the Pope above. As we have already seen
from that sentence, it is only by appealing to global context that

8
readers would accept the second interpretation and reject the
first.

9 . Ambiguity vs. vagueness

In order to determine whether a sentence is vague or

ambiguous there is a simple test. Lakoff (1970:357-59)
suggested that a sentence is ambiguous if it stays ambiguous
when a certain ending is added to the sentence, such as and
Mary did too or and Mary isn't either. So, when the sentence
John went to the bank is ambiguous then

20 . John went to the bank and Mary did too is also

ambiguous.

What if the sentence were to read:

21 . John is not a priest?

To be a priest one must be human, male, adult and

unmarried. Thus, there are four different reasons for this
sentence to be true. Humour is often present in our daily
existence, and much humour is situational. It may occur both in
everyday communication as well as in literature. Language is an

8
inexhaustible source of humour in its many aspects. As Oaks
remarks, structural ambiguities are an important source for many
of the most memorable jingles, slogans, and punchlines
(2010:4). Naturally, ambiguity and humour are very frequently
used in advertisements such as Don't get mad, get GLAD (ad for
garbage bags). Stageberg (1978:39) once found another comedic
example of ambiguity in a newspaper
22 . When she washes the dishes, he should wash the
dishes with her.

When she mops up the floor, he should mop up the floor

with her. This sentence advises newlyweds to spend as much
time together as it is possible, to do things together even if they
are chores. When humour is intended, we accept ambiguity, as
this is what frequently makes us laugh. In such situations
ambiguity is a tool and source of laughter. But what if a sentence
is created and ambiguity occurs unintentionally? As Oaks and
Lewis claim, ambiguity doesn’t just happen but often results
from the careless use of identifiable structures or particular
words (Oaks & Lewis 1998:277). Carelessness, inaccuracy and
even poor knowledge of the English language and English
structures may lead to errors that can produce
miscommunication and humour. Indeed, such was the initial
inspiration for writing this paper.

8
10 . Sources of ambiguity

There are two sources of ambiguity according to Gause and

Weinberg (1989:5): missing information and communication
errors. There may be many reasons for missing information:
poor observation skills, generalization or excluding essential
information. Another source is the failure of communication that
take place between the writer and the reader due to mistakes in
the writing. Another huge source of ambiguity arises from the
use of prepositions. There are particular sentences that by means
of the prepositional phrase (PP) become ambiguous. It is very
common for ambiguity to occur when a sentence has the VP NP
PP sequence. The most frequently cited example is a sentence of
the type:

24 . I saw the man with a telescope.

Due to the specific sequencing, such a sentence causes

ambiguity in the sense that we are confused about the ownership
of the telescope. In order to grasp the meaning we can use a tool
often used for disambiguation, a syntactic tree diagram. These
are widely used in linguistics as they provide quick and efficient
representations of some important organizational properties of
individual sentences (Baker 1998:92). Let us have a look at the
tree representations of both meanings of the sentence in
question.4 As we can see there is a possibility of adding an
indirect object to the argument Another grammatical category

8
that causes ambiguity are pronouns. As we know pronouns are
generic words that have little or no meaning on their own. There
are various complications concerning pronouns, particularly
concerning the referent. As Oaks (2010:280) points out these
complications illustrate the challenges surrounding pronoun
reference and why this feature of the language is such a rich
source of ambiguity. In order to avoid ambiguity one must grasp
what the referent, or antecedent is. The Merriam-Webster
Dictionary defines antecedent as 'a substantive word, phrase, or
clause whose denotation is referred to by a pronoun .5 It is
usually the word that the pronoun refers to or replaces, and it
may be either a word, a phrase or even a clause. For example, in
the statement

25 . Monica bit her lip, her is the pronoun, while

Monica is the antecedent.

Certainly, in a perfect world the pronoun will have only one

possible antecedent, but in the world we live in. The
"postBloomfieldian era" distinguishes two classes of personal
possessives: (weak or conjoint) possessive determiners and
(strong or absolute) possessive pronouns (Puckica 2013:70). The
weak possessives are my, his, their and such like, while the
strong possessives are mine, his, theirs, and such. The latter are
more readily noticed as they are often in final position in
phrases, sentences, and can stand on their own.

8
11 . Confused words

Words are confused when they are a like in spelling and in

some aspect of meaning as with apprise / apprise and flaunt /
flout some pairs are confused in spelling but not meaning ( e.g.
the verb forbear and the noun forbear ), while in other cases it’s
the meaning that is the main problem ( as with disinterested and
uninterested ). In some cases the confusion is in one direction
only, as with infer, which overlaps controversially with imply
although the revers confusion doesn’t occur. In some cases, the
overlaps in meaning is considerable enough to make a consistent
distinction impossible, as with sensual and sensuous some of the
pairs have diverged in meaning over time, having once been
much the same ( e.g. continuous and continual; ensure and
insure in other cases the overlaps involves more than two ( e.g.
allusion / illusion / delusion ).

The following are some of the more important sets of words

that have separate entries in this book :-

Childish Child like

Coherence Cohesion

Complacent Complaisant

Complement Compliment

Console Condole Condone

Continuous Continual

8
12 . Understanding frequently confused words

English is probably the most linguistically diverse language

in the world English borrows words from latin, Greek. French,
Spanish, Italian and other languages and sometimes incorporates
the spelling patterns of those languages this quality makes
English rich and dynamic, but it also can make choosing the
right word confusing some factors that contribute to this
confusion are the following characteristics of English words:
• English has the ability to change a word to different
parts of speech, Changing the pronunciation but
maintaining the same spelling Your conduct is
exemplary because you conduct yourself like a
professional.

• Some words may have the same sound but different

spelling and meaning

(I had strong desire to see the sea )

All right / alright
Preview the context Despite his injuries he is all right
• All right means okay or adequate. All right is the only
correct form

He promised that everything would be all right if I called.

8
 • Alright is a misspelling of all right the form alright is
nonstandard

Practice in context I knew it would be ________ with

Mike, but it wasn’t _________ with his wife.

13 . Commonly confused words

•Accept and Except:

Accept is a verb that means to receive. Except is both a

preposition and a verb: meaning but and to leave out.

Example: “He accepted a present” is different from

“Everyone except Laurie received presents.”
•Advice and Advise:

Advice is a noun that refers to guidance or

recommendations. Advise is a verb meaning to offer suggestions
about the best course of action to someone. Example: A person
who advises students gives them advice on the best courses to
take.

•Affect and Effect:

In terms of usage, affect is usually a verb and effect is

usually a noun. Example: The party was affected by the
weather. The effect of the plastic surgery was astounding.

8
However, the tricky part is that these words can also be used in
other ways. Affect can be a noun, specifically when describing
psychological conditions. Effect can be a verb meaning to bring
about or to accomplish. Example: The drug created a happy
affect. The political party hoped to effect change with new
policies.

Conclusion

As language users we often take it for granted that in our

daily communication there is a constant battle between
ambiguity and clarity. This paper has discussed four types of
lexical relations, showing the extent in which each of them can
cause ambiguity in daily communication. It also established that
various kinds of contextual knowledge are germane in
disambiguation. The implication of the above discussion is that
as language users we ought to construct our sentences in such a
way that will leave no room for ambiguity. This can be achieved

8
through the use of the various contextual resources open to us.
Adequate knowledge of contextualization is important. It is not
just enough to know the meaning of words but also the context
in which such words can best be used. By so doing we will not
only eliminate ambiguity but also communicate more
effectively.

Reference

Akmajian, A., R. A. Demers, A.K. Farmers and R. M.

Harnish 2004. Linguistics: An introduction to language
and communication. (5th ed.) New Delhi: Prentice-Hall.

Baker, L. 1998. English Syntax. London: The MIT Press.

Bloor, M and T. Bloor.2007. The practice of critical discourse

analysis: An introduction. UK: Hodder Education.

Crystal, D.2008. A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics. (6th

ed.) Oxford: Blackwell.

Dash, N. S. 2008. “Context and Contextual Word Meaning” In

SKASE Journal of theoretical linguistics [on-line], vol.5,
no.2. Accessed: October 8, 2010.

8
Durda, K., Caron, R. J., Buchanan, L. 2010. An Application
of Operational Research to computational in linguistics:
word ambiguity.

Gause, D. C., Weinberg G. M. 1989. Exploring Requirements:

Quality Before Design. Dorset House, New York, NY.

Gillion, B. S. 1990. Ambiguity Generality, and Indeterminacy:

tests and Definitions.

Hamidi, Y. M. 2009. ' Some cases of Ambiguity in English'

[in:] Daily Magazine, no. 38.1-21.
Hirst, G. (1992). Semantic Interpretation and the Resolution of
Ambiguity. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Jackson, H. and E.Z. Amvéla 2001. Words, meaning and

vocabulary: An introduction to modern English lexicology.
New York: Continuum.

Lakoff, G. 1970. A note on vagueness and ambiguity [in:]

Linguistic Inquiry.

Longman active study dictionary, 2008. New Ed. UK: Pearson

Longman.

Matthews, P.H.2007. Oxford concise dictionary of linguistics.

(2nd ed.), New York: Oxford University Press.

8
McArthur, T. 1996. The Oxford companion to the English
language. (Abridged Ed.) Oxford: The University Press.

Mish, F.C. (1984). Webster’s ninth new collegiate dictionary.

Sprignfield. MA. Merriam Webster.

Mohammad Reza Hashemi and Farah Gowdasiaei. 2005. An

attribute treatment interaction study: Lexical set versus
semantically-unrelated vocabulary instruction. RELC
journal.

Ndimele, O.M. 2007. Semantics and the frontiers

of communication. Port Harcourt. Uniport Press Ltd.
Oaks, D. D. 2010. Structural Ambiguity in English. An
Applied Grammatical Inventory. Continuum International
Publishing Group.

Oaks, D. D., Lewis J. 1998. "What can Humor and advertising

Teach us about legal Drafting?".

Rodd, J. M., Gaskell, M. G., Marslen-Wilson, W. D. 2004.

"Modeling the effects of semantic ambiguity"

Saeed, J. 2008. Semantics. (2nd ed.), Oxford: Blackwell

Publishing.

Stageberg, N. C. 1958. ' Some structural Ambiguities'

8
Stageberg, N. C. 1978. ' Ambiguity in Action: A Bawdy Count.

Umera-Okeke, N. 2008. Semantics and pragmatics: Theories of

meaning and usage in English. Awka: Fab Educational
Books.