On semantic and pragmatic ambiguity (original) (raw)

The topic of this paper is an analysis of different realizations of indirect and ambiguous language usage. The paper starts out with a short survey of two varying concepts of direct and indirect communication, i.e. Grice's theory of conversational implicature and Kierkegaard's concept of indirect communication. Based on examples, different combinations of semantic and pragmatic unequivocality and ambiguity are described and explained, mainly by means of the above mentioned philosophers. * I am much indebted to Jacob Mey and to the anonymous Danish referee for their inspiring, helpful, and critical comments on an earlier version of this article.