Lexical ambiguity: the same word has different meanings.

Structural ambiguity: a clause or a sentence has different interpretations because of structural reasons.

Valency: a term borrowed from chemistry. Verbs impose restrictions on the kind of structures that can
occur with them. Valency gives a minimal specification of what needs to be in a construction and a
maximal of given elements that can be there.

Semantic valency: what participants are evoked by a verb?

-Devorar: un devorador/ algo devorado; Dar: alguien que le da algo a alguien/ Poner: alguien que pone
algo en un lugar; Tirar: Tiré la basura (en el contenedor)>>> alguien que tira algo (en un lugar)

Sometimes the semantic valency of a verb does not equal its syntactic valency:
For example, the verb ‘admiting’ conjures the image of a listener that doesn’t need to be express in the
syntactic structure.

Definition of valency: the number of participants is called the verb’s valency. Comer has a valency of
two (transitive); Dar has a valency of three (ditransitive); Correr has a valency of one (intransitive).
Each participant is called an argument of the verb.

Los argumentos requeridos son independientes de la categoría sintáctica. Un mismo argumento, por
ejemplo un ɵtema del verbo ‘decir’ puede ser cumplido, por ejemplo, por una FN como por una
cláusula subordinada nominal: Dije una barbaridad/Dije que te apuraras.

En este sentido: hay argumentos que son obligatorios y otros que son opcionales (complementos y
adjuntos). Los adjuntos no son argumentos evocados por el verbo. Los adjuntos pueden ser
multiplicados en una oración, pero los complementos son finitos.

-Juan devoró la pizza / *Juan devoró.

-Juan le dió un libro a Pedro./ *Juan le dio a Pedro / *Juan dió
-Puse el libro en la biblioteca/ *Puse el libro/ *puse en la biblioteca

Valency of adjectives:
Other syntactic categories have valency to.
-He is ashamed >>>of his exams results.
-The water is safe>>>to drink
-Belgians are renowed>>>for their love of beer.
-John is easy>>>to please.

Also nouns can have valency:

-John’s attitude>>>towards belgians is problematic.
-John has a tendency>>>to drink too much.
-There was a connection>>>between the two
-There’s a risk>>>of getting mugged
Grammatical constructions:
Hay construcciones simples.
Hay construcciones cordinadas con distintas conjunciones: y, ni, o, pero, mas.
Hay subordinación nominal (complement clauses), relativa (head dependent) y adverbial.
Por otro lado, hay clausulas de participio, de infinitivo y de gerundio.

Syntactic ambiguity:

The ‘garden path’ ambiguity: Is the type of ambiguity in which the beginning of a sentence suggests
a different structure than the complete sentence:
-The old man the boat>>> ‘man’ being a verb and not a noun
-The judge found a liar was convicted>>> meaning The judge found that a liar was convicted by
someone else.
-Fat people eat accumulates>>> Meaning the fat that people eat, and not something that fat people eat.
-The prime number few>>> ‘prime’ as a noun and not as an adjective
-The cotton clothing is usually made of grows in Mississippi>>> meaning: clothing is usually made of
cotton that is grown in Mississippi.