Lexical, Syntactic, or Referential Ambiguity?

Question

1) He drove the car over the lawn mower, but it wasn't hurt.
2) Joe impressed the girl with the guitar.
3) The dog was in a run.
4) Bob waved to Jim in the hallway between class. He smiled.
5) I found this letter at the bank.

Thanks for your help! :D

Answer 1

Lexical refers to word meaning. Syntactic refers to word order. Referential refers to what is meant by a pronoun.

1) referential ambiguity
2) syntactic ambiguity
3) lexical ambiguity
4) referential ambiguity
5) lexical ambiguity

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Cheers,
Bruce

Answer 2

Remember, you want to be specific, concise, and correct.

Let's go one by one:

1) The problem here is that it sounds as if you are talking about a person. The lawnmower may be damaged, broken, etc., but not hurt. Also, the pronoun usage is very sloppy. You can say something such as, "He drove his car over the lawnmower, completely damaging the lawnmower." The second part of the sentence modifies the action in the first part of the sentence. That is one of many possible solutions.
2) The problem here is that Joe may have impressed her with the appearance of his guitar, but he may have impressed her with his guitar playing. You have to give details about “what actually impresses her.” You don’t want to be ambiguous.
3) I don't really know what you are trying to say in this sentence. Are you trying to say, "I took the dog out for a run"?
4) An easy mistake to make here is the idea that they are seeing each other between classes. To some, this may sound as if they are physically in between two classes. You should be very clear and state that they said hello while walking from one class to the other, etc. It's very common to speak this way when using informal English.
5) Not exactly sure what you want to say here. If you know the specific bank, then use "the," but if not, then use "a," if you are not specifying which bank. Are you holding or looking at the letter that you are referring to? If not, then you cannot use "this" because "this" refers to something specific. You may say, "I found one of my letters at the bank down the street."

Hope this helps!