Semantic polysemy and psycholinguistics

Devitt, Michael

doi:10.1111/mila.12327

Cited by 15 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Speaking from a philosophical perspective, Devitt (2021) recently raised objections to the core-lemma view on “Occamist” grounds (i.e., based on a preference for simple explanations over unnecessarily complex ones). According to Devitt (2021), the best description of how polysemes are stored is that each of a polyseme’s conventionally distinguishable senses is stored separately. For one, it would seem developmentally implausible that speakers would not inevitably establish separate representations for different senses after having frequently encountered the different usages and meanings of the different senses.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Are lexical representations graded or discrete?

Buxó-Lugo

Jacobs

et al. 2023

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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Most research on mental lexical representations (lemmas) assumes they are discrete and correspond in number to a word’s number of distinct meanings. Thus, homophones (bat), whose meanings are unrelated, have separate lemmas for each meaning (one for baseball bat, another for flying bat), whereas polysemes (paper), whose senses are related, have shared lemmas (the same lemma for printer paper and term paper). However, most aspects of cognition are thought to be graded, not discrete; could lemmas be graded too? We conducted a preregistered picture-word interference study with pictures of words whose meanings ranged from unrelated (homophones) to very related (regular polysemes). Whereas semantic competitors to picture names slow picture naming, semantic competitors to non-depicted meanings of homophones facilitate naming, suggesting distinct lemmas for homophones’ meanings (Cutting & Ferreira, 1999). We predicted that competitors to non-depicted senses of polysemes would slow naming, since polysemes’ depicted and non-depicted senses presumably share a lemma. Crucially, we aimed to examine the transition from facilitation to inhibition: two groupings (where competitors to non-depicted senses led to facilitation for words with two lemmas but inhibition for words with one lemma) would imply that lemmas are indeed discrete. But a transition that varies continuously by sense relatedness would imply that lemmas are graded. Unexpectedly, competitors to non-depicted senses of both homophones and polysemes facilitated naming. Although these results do not indicate whether lemmas are graded or discrete, they do inform a longstanding question on the nature of polysemes, supporting a multiple-lemma (vs. core-lemma) account.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are lexical representations graded or discrete?

Buxó-Lugo

Jacobs

et al. 2023

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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“…In semantic analysis the conventional meaning of words is always focused instead of an individual's attempt to explore a particular meaning on any particular occasion. The technical approach is identified with general meanings or objectives and ignores trying to account for local meaning or subjective [14]. The linguistics semantics specifically deals with traditional meaning revealed through application of words, sentences and phrases of language.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing an Idea about Semantics and Psycholinguistics

Lakshmi¹,

Catoto²

2022

TTLL

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This overall report is revolving around developing an idea about semantics and psycholinguistics. Semantics and psycholinguistics are closely related that explain the way word can be interpreted by different individuals. Secondary data collection method has been chosen as the appropriate data collection method which will be sourced form already published articles and journals. Thematic analysis has been chosen for this study that has helped to duly meet the objectives and reach conclusion about particular topic. Keyword : Language processing, Psycholinguistic, Semantics

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“…Where communication is concerned, much of the literature tends to separate out semantics from pragmatics (e.g. Devitt, 2021; Gutzmann, 2020). This distinction relates to the frequently held notion that semantic signals can be thought of in terms of either a conventional meaning independent of any context (a situated instance), or pragmatically in terms of the ways in which the signals exceed their conventional meaning in a specific usage situation.…”

Section: The Themes Of Meaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

A multifaceted framework to establish the presence of meaning in non‐human communication

Amphaeris

Blumstein²,

Shannon

et al. 2023

Biological Reviews

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Does non‐human communication, like language, involve meaning? This question guides our focus through an interdisciplinary review of the theories and terminology used to study meaning across disciplines and species. Until now, it has been difficult to apply the concept of meaning to communication in non‐humans. This is partly because of the varied approaches to the study of meaning. Additionally, while there is a scholarly acknowledgement of potential meaning in non‐human cognition, there is also scepticism when the topic of communication arises. We organise some of the key literature into a coherent framework that can bridge disciplines and species, to ensure that aspects of meaning are accurately and fairly compared. We clarify the growing view in the literature that, rather than requiring multiple definitions or being split into different types, meaning is a multifaceted yet still unified concept. In so doing, we propose that meaning is an umbrella term. Meaning cannot be summed up with a short definition or list of features, but involves multiple complexities that are outlined in our framework. Specifically, three global facets are needed to describe meaning: a Signal Meaning Facet, an Interactant Meaning Facet, and a Resultant Meaning Facet. Most importantly, we show that such analyses are possible to apply as much to non‐humans as to humans. We also emphasise that meaning nuances differ among non‐human species, making a dichotomous approach to meaning questionable. Instead, we show that a multifaceted approach to meaning establishes how meaning appears within highly diverse examples of non‐human communication, in ways consistent with the phenomenon's presence in human non‐verbal communication and language(s). Therefore, without further recourse to ‘functional’ approaches that circumvent the critical question of whether any non‐human meaning exists, we show that the concept of meaning is suitable for evolutionary biologists, behavioural ecologists, and others to study, to establish exactly which species exhibit meaning in their communication and in what ways.

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Semantic polysemy and psycholinguistics

Cited by 15 publications

References 27 publications

Are lexical representations graded or discrete?

Are lexical representations graded or discrete?

Developing an Idea about Semantics and Psycholinguistics

A multifaceted framework to establish the presence of meaning in non‐human communication

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