[Corpora-List] Instances of coordination ambiguity in the BNC

[Khan, I. H.]

The NPs of the form 'the Adjective Noun1 and Noun2' have two readings (coordination ambiguity):
 
1. [the Adjective [Noun1 and Noun2]];   i.e., Adjective has wide-scope
2. [the [Adjective Noun1] and Noun2];   i.e., Adjective has narrow-scope
 
I wonder how frequently this type of ambiguity really occur in the BNC (British National Corpus). Using Kilgarrif'fs Sketch Engine, I found ca. 12500 instances (examples) of this type. What kind of statistics can I make about this figure (12500)? Loosely speaking, I can say that there are too many instances of coordination ambiguity in the BNC, but that sounds a bit over-statement. Isn't it?
 
Any suggestions.
 
 
Regards
 
 
Imtiaz H. Khan
PhD Research Student
Computing Science Department
University of Aberdeen
http://www.csd.abdn.ac.uk/~ikhan/ <https://mail.abdn.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.csd.abdn.ac.uk/~ikhan/> 


The University of Aberdeen is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013683.
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