Example of Lexical Vagueness

The lexical vagueness It occurs when a word can have a non-precise meaning within a sentence. It is distinguished from ambiguity in the sense that the latter occurs when you have a word with different meanings within a sentence but these meanings are clear.

In the case of lexical vaguenessAlthough the meaning of the word is clear, this clarity cannot be determined within the statement.

Examples of lexical vagueness:

In the sentence Pedro lives with his grandmother, the word grandmother is not clear, it is not specified whether he lives with his mother's mother or his father's, so it is not clear which grandmother is refers.

Another word that causes lexical vagueness is the word brother-in-law, since it applies to both the brothers of the couple and the partners of the sisters; In the following sentence, saying that Juan and Pedro are brothers-in-law does not make the relationship between them clear, if Juan is the partner of Pedro's sister or if Pedro is the partner of Juan's sister.

In the statement, Alfonso is going to see a movie, it is not entirely clear if he is going to see it at his house or he is going to go to the cinema to see it. Another example of lexical vagueness is the sentence Javier is reading, since it is not clear whether he reads a book, a magazine or a newspaper and all of this may be possible.

A characteristic of lexical vagueness is that by denying one of them, they are all denied by extension, for example if He says that María is not Alberto's sister-in-law, so María is not the sister of Alberto's partner nor is she the partner of any brother of Alberto.