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You're sort of validating the technique: in those examples the meaning of the sentence is absolutely ambiguous. The fact that a google search wouldn't return a
by hackinthebochs 13y ago
You're sort of validating the technique: in those examples the meaning of the sentence is absolutely ambiguous. The fact that a google search wouldn't return a conclusive result is expected.
- austinz 13y agoNot for the second one; "car undergoing maintenance" will probably return more results than "factory undergoing maintenance", but one parsing of the sentence (the one where the factory is being maintained) makes far more sense than the other.
- jliechti1 13y agoBut at the same time, people use sentences like this very frequently and there seems to be some sort of heuristic we are using to disambiguate it. It's not the case that every time an ambiguous sentence is used in real life people will stop and consider the possible cases. Granted, sometimes we will make the wrong assumption on how to disambiguate sentences that are absolutely ambiguous. Another example where semantic closeness won't really help you (though context/situation would help): "I looked at the man with the telescope." Case 1: I looked at the man using the telescope. Case 2: I looked at the man who was holding the telescope.