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> その映画は日本で初めて公開された。

I think this means:

> This movie was first released in Japan.

However, I was wondering if it could be both understood as "The first release
of this movie happened in Japan" (it wasn't released anywhere else before) and
"In Japan, this was the first time this movie was released" (it may have been
released before in other countries).
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-10-13T10:46:54.380
62166
2018-10-14T07:41:24.003
2018-10-14T07:41:24.003
30652
30652
question
grammar
Is there an ambiguity with 初めて in this sentence?
> その映画は日本で初めて公開された。

This Japanese sentence is ambiguous. Still, if there is no context at all, I
would probably take it as the former, "The first release of this movie
happened in Japan". If it means the latter, it tends to be その映画は日本で **は**
初めて公開された with the contrast marker は. This は is similar to bringing "in Japan"
to the beginning of the sentence. It turns "this movie was first released in
Japan", which I think is equally ambiguous, to "In Japan, this move was first
released".
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-10-14T03:36:19.217
62184
2018-10-14T03:36:19.217
5010
62166
answer