Research On The Structure Of Ambiguous Sentences In Japanese

Based on the theory of "Syntax", the research studies the structure of ambiguous sentences in Japanese from the grammatical angle and analyses the method to eliminate the ambiguity of each structure.The research on ambiguous sentences in Japanese may be divided into4categories: research on ambiguous sentences in the phonology, grammar, vocabulary and pragmatics fields. The range of research on ambiguous sentences is wide:relevant research data can be found in the general linguistic, or even machine translation, artificial intelligence, computer linguistics, psychology field, etc. The great majority of research is on semantics and pragmatics fields while research on grammar field is relately little. So, with a view to eliminate ambiguities of Japanese sentences, this thesis tries to study the constructure of ambiguous sentences from the grammatical angle. Starting from the definition and interpretation of "ambiguity", it elaborates on the "ambiguity" defined by Japanese, Chinese and English respectively as well as the conceptive differences between the "ambiguity" defined by each before putting the Japanese sentence into the two categories of "noun sentence" and "verb sentence" and conducting a detailed analysis of the structure of each from the angle of the "syntax" theory.Attributive subordinate clauses and adverbial modifiers in Japanese cause many ambiguities. Ambiguities grow with the number of the nouns following an attributive subordinate clause and of the predicates following an adverbial modifer. With a coordinate structure, ambiguities grow with the number of nouns. Most Japanese sentences have the above ambiguities and different forms of ambiguous structures interact on each other resulting in complex and deep ambiguities.This study roughly divides the structure of an ambiguous sentence into3categories: that caused by the attributive subordinate clause, the adverbia modifier, and the coordinate structure before carrying out specific analyses and drawing a conclusion regarding the elimination of each structure:An ambiguous sentence caused by an attributive subordinate clause:to eliminate the ambiguity by changing the way of expression, adding a punctuation mark or just putting the modifier in front.An ambiguous sentence caused by an adverbial modifier:to eliminate the ambiguity by changing the position of the adverbial modifier, adding a punctuation mark or changing it into a concrete noun. An ambiguous sentence caused by a coordinate structure:to eliminate the ambiguity by adding a punctuation mark, adding a numerical-classifier compound or or changing the position of the noun.During the Japanese teaching, we could help students had a better understanding on ambiguous sentences and Japanese culture by our study. Meanwhile, we not only stress the eliminate the ambiguity of each structure, but also help students to use the ambiguous sentences, furthermore, to master the rules of them, which is our study purpose.