From contract drafting to software specification linguistic sources of ambiguity

Simple misuse of the language in which the document is written is one source of these ambiguities. Documents: Advanced Search Include Citations. Authors: Advanced Search Include Citations. Berry , Ph. Computer Science , Michael M. Systematic polysemy occurs when the reason for the polysemy is confusion between classes, e.

Analytical ambiguity occurs when the role of the constituents within a phrase or sentence is ambiguous. The Tibetan history teacher. Attachment ambiguity occurs when a particular syntactic constituent of a sentence, such as a prepositional phrase or a relative clause, can be legally attached to two parts of a sentence. The police shot the rioters with guns. Coordination ambiguity occurs 1.

Elliptical ambiguity occurs when it is not certain whether or not a sentence contains an ellipsis. Perot knows a richer man than Trump. Ambiguity with respect to the logical form, usually expressed in predicate logic, of a sentence. Semantic ambiguity can be caused by: 1. All linguists prefer a theory. No one has seen a pig with wings. Referential ambiguity The trucks shall treat the roads before they freeze.

If not, the card is rejected. Deictic ambiguity Every student thinks she is a genius. And see MSCD 8. For one thing, ambiguity generally passes unnoticed during the drafting process and only resurfaces after closing, if at all. But such gamesmanship seems antithetical to a successful contract relationship and might violate ethics rules.

It likely looms larger in the imagination of lawyers than in real life. If a contract provision is unduly general, more falls within the scope of the provision than the parties had anticipated, leading to confusion as to what the parties had actually intended. For example, Acme shall purchase the Audi from Widgetco is unduly general if Widgetco owns more than one car manufactured by Audi.

Unduly general contract language was famously at issue in Raffles v. Wichelhaus , 2 Hurl. In failing to provide sufficient detail to distinguish the two ships, the contract was unduly general. Inconsistency in contracts arises from employing one word or phrase to convey two different meanings—for example, using shall to express both obligations and conditions see this post.

Inconsistency also results from employing two or more different words or phrases to convey the same meaning. Inconsistency creates confusion, and an aggrieved contract party could fasten on inconsistency in an attempt to have an unintended meaning attributed to a given provision.

Redundancy in contracts arises from including in a provision a word or phrase that conveys a meaning expressed by one or more other words or phrases in that provision. A given reader may be uncertain whether a given word or phrase is in fact redundant and may attempt to have an unintended meaning attributed to a given provision—witness litigation regarding the meaning of indemnify and hold harmless see this post.

Conflict occurs when separate provisions in a given agreement contradict each other.