structural ambiguity

A term used in LINGUISTICS to refer to a CONSTRUCTION with more than one GRAMMATICAL interpretation in terms of CONSTITUENT analysis; also called grammatical ambiguity. A much-used example is old men and women, which is structurally ambiguous: it may be analyzed as [old men] and women (i.e. only the men are old) or old [men and women] (i.e. both the men and women are old). In GENERATIVE grammar, this phenomenon is sometimes referred to as ‘CONSTRUCTIONAL homonymity’.