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The noun "territory" can be both countable and uncountable, so "an occupied territory" and "unoccupied territory" are both complete noun phrases. The first vowels of the noun phrases are both schwa if they occur as part of normal speech. This may pose a problem in differentiating the two phrases (in fact, when I said "XYZ is an occupied territory" to my wife, she thought that I'd said "XYZ is unoccupied territory," which resulted in a lot of confusion).

I am aware of a few tactics to avoid such confusion:

  • One could stress "an" or "un-", which then would have different vowels. But I suspect if that would sound unnatural.
  • Alternatively, one could paraphrase the sentence so the noun phrases wouldn't occur. For instance, I could have said "XYZ is occupied by ABC." This may not be easy or possible especially on the fly.

Is there a better way of differentiating such pairs of noun phrases?

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  • context, perceived speaker's intention.
    – green_ideas
    Nov 19, 2019 at 22:13
  • If you perceive a potential ambiguity of this type, speak extra clearly.
    – Michael Harvey
    Nov 19, 2019 at 22:36
  • On a related note, the word umpire comes from French noumper, but the n was lost due to failure to distinguish between a noumper and an oumpere. See Etymology online. Point: even native speakers cannot always rely on their ears.
    – green_ideas
    Nov 19, 2019 at 22:42

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This is an interesting problem case that you've brought up. I had not previously thought about the ambiguity that could arise when a noun is both countable and uncountable and can be paired with an adjective that has an alternate (negative) form starting with "un". Luckily, I think the main reason I've never thought about this is that I'm pretty sure it's a very unusual situation that really does not occur often enough to worry that much about in general, particularly when additional factors like context are taken into account as well.

However, there are a couple of suggestions I have for you:

  1. In this case, at least, I think you could get by with simply not ever using the indefinite article with "occupied territory". Saying "That is occupied territory" is pretty much equivalent to saying "That is an occupied territory" in most cases. This avoids the ambiguity, but does somewhat rely on the listener knowing that "an occupied territory" is not something you would ever say, so you must have meant "unoccupied territory". This may or may not work for your particular situation.
  2. As you mentioned, there are various ways to rephrase things to split the adjective and the noun apart. The most straightforward of these, I think, would be to get in the habit of saying "that territory is occupied/unoccupied" instead of "that is an occupied/unoccupied territory", etc.
  3. Spend some time practicing your elocution, specifically (obviously) the difference between "an" and "un". While the two sounds are similar, if you're speaking clearly, they should not actually be pronounced the same, and if you're running into confusion from listeners, it is probably because you are not differentiating them as clearly as you really could be in your speech. (I suspect this is part of the reason I've personally never encountered this issue, as I believe I pronounce "an" noticeably differently than "un" in general.)
  4. Insert an extra (half-syllable or so) break or pause between "an" and following words. I do this in some cases when the following word starts with a vowel anyway, as I find it can make it easier sometimes for listeners to pick out the following word correctly, and it also has the advantage that "an something" is not easily confused with "unsomething" because they have noticeably different timing when spoken.
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  • +1 for points 3+4 - I believe these are the main ways to tell the difference between these two phrases - certainly as a native BrE speaker who sometimes pronounces 'an' as 'un', I have a very minor extra gap between 'an ock' compared with 'un-ock', and also somehow instinctively make sure to pronounce the 'an' properly when it could be confused with 'un' (So I wouldn't bother with 'an otter' as there is no 'unotter')
    – Smock
    Nov 20, 2019 at 9:43
  • Re point 4, do you insert a glottal stop between "an" and the following word?
    – Pteromys
    Nov 29, 2019 at 0:34
  • @Pteromys I hadn't really spent a lot of time thinking about it before, but in terms of what I do, no, I don't think it actually qualifies as a full glottal stop.. I can't quite find a term for it, but I guess the best way to describe it would be that it has roughly the same timing as if one were to insert a glottal stop (with a general pause in airflow), but without any use of the glottis (so it does not have the same hard edge). A glottal stop would potentially also work in this scenario, though I suspect it might sound like you were stressing the word break more than necessary..
    – Foogod
    Dec 2, 2019 at 15:36

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