Multiple meanings of “I hope that you will prove them wrong”

Question

I were recently told that the sentence "I hope that you will prove them wrong" should have two or more meanings 'in-sentence', but not how and this is bugging me!

I can only make sense of this 'out-of-sentence', by making demands to the previous sentence, either making "that" point to a previous statement "I hope that! You will prove them wrong" or by making the action "you will" point to a previous statement "I hope that you will! Prove them wrong"

(The multiple meaning could also be from dual meanings of words too, like bat->animal and baseballbat. I don't see how this would apply though)

Can you see more ways of interpreting this sentence?

Answer 1

I can only see one meaning as well.

You could put emphasis in different places to shift the meaning slightly, I suppose:

"I hope that you will prove them wrong" or "I hope that you will prove them wrong" both express some doubt that you will prove them wrong.

*"I hope that you will prove them wrong" means "If they are proved wrong, I hope that you, rather than anyone else, are the one to do it."

*"I hope that you will prove them wrong" means "When you prove they're wrong or right, I hope they are wrong"

I don't know if these count, as they depend where the emphasis goes, which can only really happen when the sentence is spoken (or you use bold/italics like above).

Answer 2

The word wrong can be an adverb as well as an adjective. So it could mean:

I hope that you will prove them incorrectly.

Of course, with this change, the referent for them needs to change from people to things you prove (like theorems).