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Anonymous Posted 12 years ago
Grammar

ambiguity

Mary said that George hit his knee quite hard yesterday.

How is this sentence ambiguous? What are the two interpretations/paraphrases?
  

Top answer

In my opinion, the sentence is not ambiguous. If the gender of both characters in the sentence were the same, then it would be ambiguous. Jack said that George hit his knee quite hard yesterday.

— Avangi

  • In my opinion, the sentence is not ambiguous.
  • If the gender of both characters in the sentence were the same, then it would be ambiguous.
  • Jack said that George hit his knee quite hard yesterday.
  • 1.
  • Jack said that George hit his own (George's) knee etc.
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4 Answers
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In my opinion, the sentence is not ambiguous.

If the gender of both characters in the sentence were the same, then it would be ambiguous.

Jack said that George hit his knee quite hard yesterday.

1. Jack said that George hit his own (George's) knee etc.
2. Jack said that George hit Jack's knee etc.

The question is, what is the an
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In the absence of any context, I believe most people would assume that George hit his own knee.

However, "his knee" could technically refer to some other man's knee.
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Did he hit his knee with something, or did he hit something with his knee?
The sentence grammatically implies that he hit his knee with something, maybe a hammer.
He hit his knee quite hard on a rock yesterday.
He hit his knee quite hard with a rock yesterday.
Prepositions help clarify the sentence.
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AnonymousMary said that George hit his knee quite hard yesterday.
Okay, I agree that this could be ambiguous. He could have hit his knee on something, and he could have hit his knee with something.

The second one seems unlikely, but accidents certainly do happen!
Sorry, I missed that one!
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