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Linguists these days tell us that when a word is ambiguous (more than one lexical definition), the default option is to assume that the author intends one of the multiple meanings. Fair enough: “I rose from bed” and “I plucked a rose” clearly use “rose” in two radically different senses. Linguists recognize that there can also be deliberate double meanings, such as “Jesus is the rose from the dead.”

But that’s a fairly colorless featureless way to handle the problem. It may be all you need to know for translation purposes, but certainly not for interpretation purposes. Besides “multiple lexical definitions” words have a host of associations that are lexically secondary but may, in certain contexts, be literarily primary. Thus, even when there is no “double entendre” happening, a writer may intend to evoke a range of associations that keep spinning off the more you think about it.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 4:36 pm

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Hermeneutics: Notes on ambiguity

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Hermeneutics: Notes on ambiguity

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