Complex nominal groups are common in technical English (i.e. English for Specific Purposes, ESP) as they allow lexical items to be tightly packed into a clause. This leads to increased lexical density and syntactic ambiguity. In this paper we analyze (complex) nominal groups in technical English, assuming that it is not only the context and extralinguistic knowledge (i.e. shared technical background that the ESP teacher does not necessarily possess) that help solve the syntactic ambiguity, but that the structure of the nominal group, or more precisely the position of modifiers within the group can help disambiguate the meaning. Thus, modifiers standing farthest from the head have the least specifying potential and are followed by those which restrict the meaning of the entire nominal group. In the example steam reciprocating engine (vs.*reciprocating steam engine) the participle reciprocating has a more specific meaning and is thus closer to the head of the nominal group. The results show how the type of modification (linear or non-linear) can help disambiguate complex nominal groups. The main contribution of the paper is to help the ESP teacher, who is not a specialist in the field of (marine) engineering, process, understand and successfully teach complex nominal groups.

中文翻译：

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技术英语中（复杂）名词组的句法歧义

复杂的名词组在技术英语（即专用英语，ESP）中很常见，因为它们允许将词条紧密地包装到子句中。这导致增加的词汇密度和句法歧义。在本文中，我们分析（复杂的）技术英语名词词组，假定不仅是上下文和语言学知识（即，ESP老师不一定具有共同的技术背景）有助于解决句法歧义，而且结构名词组的修饰语，或更确切地说，修饰语在组中的位置可以帮助消除歧义。因此，距离头部最远的修饰符具有最小的指定电位，其后是那些限制整个标称组含义的修饰符。在示例蒸汽往复式发动机（vs. *往复式蒸汽机）往复式的分词具有更具体的含义，因此更接近标称组的头部。结果表明，修改类型（线性或非线性）如何帮助消除复杂的名义组的歧义。本文的主要贡献是帮助ESP老师（不是海洋工程领域的专家）处理，理解和成功教授复杂的名义群体。