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    Showing the ambiguity does not reside in 'and' is thus co... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→The collective-distributive ambiguity in sentences like 'John and Jane moved a piano' is not due to an ambiguity in the conjunction 'and'

    Showing the ambiguity does not reside in 'and' is thus consistent with, and even predicted by, syntactic theories that posit covert operators, leaving the claim compatible with structural ambiguity accounts the original argument was meant to preclude.

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    1 reason for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Covert operators are empirically motivated by linguistic phenomena like gapping and ellipsis, making their theoretical status independently justified.
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    • 2.If ambiguity can be explained by hidden syntactic structure rather than lexical ambiguity, surface-level examination alone cannot definitively rule out structural accounts.
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    • 3.The original argument's force depends on 'and' being transparently ambiguous; showing covert operators preserve structural ambiguity undermines that foundational claim.
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    Reasons Against

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    Reason against
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    • 1.Invoking covert operators to salvage structural ambiguity accounts risks unfalsifiability—hidden operators can explain away any counter-evidence.
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    • 2.If the original argument successfully demonstrated ambiguity doesn't reside in 'and', positing post-hoc covert operators merely relocates rather than resolves the problem.
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    • 3.The explanatory burden on covert operator theories requires independent motivation beyond rescuing threatened structural accounts from objections.
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    Key Terms

    Ambiguity(as used in linguistics and philosophy of language)
    When something can be understood or interpreted in more than one way.
    Covert operators(as used in linguistic theory)
    Hidden grammatical elements that affect meaning but aren't written or spoken out loud—like implied words that listeners understand anyway.
    Preclude(as used in logic and argumentation)
    To prevent something from happening or to rule something out.
    Syntactic(as used in linguistics)
    Related to the rules and structure of how words are arranged in language, rather than their meaning.
    structural ambiguity(Contrasted with lexical ambiguity of names or definite descriptions)
    Ambiguity arising from the syntactic structure of a sentence (e.g., differences in scope) rather than from multiple meanings of a word

    Connections

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    Philosophy of Language1 linked

    Related

    Covert operators are empirically motivated by linguistic phenomena like gapping ...If ambiguity can be explained by hidden syntactic structure rather than lexical ...If the original argument successfully demonstrated ambiguity doesn't reside in '...Invoking covert operators to salvage structural ambiguity accounts risks unfalsi...
    +3 moreShow less
    The collective-distributive ambiguity in sentences like 'John and Jane moved a p...The explanatory burden on covert operator theories requires independent motivati...

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    2 (1 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit
    The original argument's force depends on 'and' being transparently ambiguous; sh...