a drug for any disease

[navi tasan]

1) Can they make a drug for any disease?

Is that sentence ambiguous?

Can it mean both of the following?

a) Can they make a drug for any specific disease?
b) Can they make a drug for all diseases? (a universal drug)

 

[probus]

It is ambiguous to my mind, but context might resolve the ambiguity. Is there any context or did you compose these sentences yourself?

 

[jutfrank]

Yes, it can mean both of those things.

I'm going to presume as always that you're not interested in context and are asking purely about the raw semantics of sentence meaning for a sentence you made up specially to ask the question.

 

[Tarheel]

In real life it's extremely unlikely that it would be unclear what is meant. (See below.)

Ron: Is it possible that they can create a drug that would cure any disease?
Don: Only in theory. In reality that's extremely unlikely.

 

[navi tasan]

Thank you all very much,

Jutfrank is correct. I wanted to see if the sentence could be used in both contexts.

Are these ambiguous as well?

2) Can they make a drug to cure any disease?
3) Can they make a drug that cures any disease?

I have a feeling '3' can only have the 'universal drug' meaning, but I am much less sure about '2'. This is very confusing for me.

 

[Tarheel]

This is very confusing for me.

I don't understand why there would be any confusion. What is most probable is that the person is talking about a drug that would cure any disease. Furthermore, unlike a hypothetical situation in which there is no context, in real life it would always be clear what the person is talking about.

 

[navi tasan]

Thank you very much, Tarheel,

In this case, maybe things are clear, but this is just an example. In certain cases things might not be so clear. I am trying to figure out how the syntax works.