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See this sentence:

sentence disambiguation is to clarify the sentence due to misunderstanding word or sentences because of English problem

It can be explained by a series of sentence:

  • The learner has English problem;
  • The learner could misunderstand the sentences because of his English problem;
  • Sentence disambiguation is to clarify the sentence so that the learner with English problem could understand it.

Can all 3 bellowed sentences combined into 1 single sentence.

I feel it a bit awkward.

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  • That example is awkward, and for more reasons than what you cite. Let me try to break it down: 1) "Sentence disambiguation" is a big, abstract noun. You couple that with a weak verb like "is," and you've got a stylistic headache. Since "disambiguation" is a nominalization (conversion into a noun form) of "disambiguate," I would suggest flipping it back to a verb: "We disambiguate sentences to clarify them." 2) "Due to ..." is hard to connect to its reference here. Is the (implied) audience misunderstanding, or is there a problem with the grammar or vocabulary in the sentence?
    – wordsmythe
    Commented Jul 3, 2014 at 17:49

1 Answer 1

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Yes, they can both appear in the same sentence, and, as a native speaker, the way I interpret it matches your explanation.

While it is valid to continue adding relevant clauses onto the ends of sentences, it can make it difficult to comprehend the meaning if the sentence. Your example is fine, but I wouldn't try adding more than that without a good reason.

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    However, the example sentence has other issues I'll mention in a comment since they have nothing to do with your question.
    – Chris
    Commented Jul 3, 2014 at 15:34
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    1)There is no context provided; is the disambiguation referring to a specific sentence being discussed, or does it refer to a more general 'any' sentence? If the latter, then the article "a" would be more appropriate than "the". 2) "word" could be "words" or "a word" (in which case it should probably be followed by "a sentence" but that's optional) 3) "English problem" should be either "an English problem" or "English problems"... and this is also ambiguous. Is it a problem with the English language itself, or the sentence reader having a problem with understanding English?
    – Chris
    Commented Jul 3, 2014 at 15:54
  • I'd write it this way: "Sentence disambiguation is used to clarify a sentence due to misunderstanding words or sentences because of English problems." The term "English problems" is what seems awkward to me. I'd change that, based on context and intended meaning. "... because of the difficulty of learning English" maybe?
    – Chris
    Commented Jul 3, 2014 at 16:12
  • Good points, Chris. I posted this in my own comment above, but I actually attribute the confusion in the example sentence to the fact that "disambiguation" is the subject. If the sentence had a human subject, it could be a lot easier to understand.
    – wordsmythe
    Commented Jul 3, 2014 at 17:55

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