The Processing of Lexical Ambiguity: Homonymy and Polysemy in the Mental Lexicon

Klepousniotou, Ekaterini

doi:10.1006/brln.2001.2518

Cited by 160 publications

(194 citation statements)

References 39 publications

(62 reference statements)

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“…Studies of context-sensitive ambiguous word comprehension, in particular, require the identification of the dominant and subordinate meanings of a word (e.g., Frazier & Rayner, 1990;Klepousniotou, 2002). Having established that the vast majority of the relative meaning frequency data are loaded onto the two most frequent meanings and that most of the words effectively have two meanings, it is therefore possible to ask whether the first definition listed in the dictionary is actually the dominant meaning of that word, as determined by lexicographers.…”

Section: External Validitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given that the vast majority of words are semantically ambiguous-that is, their meanings depend on the context in which they occur-a comprehensive theory of word and discourse comprehension necessarily involves a theory of semantic ambiguity resolution (Klein & Murphy, 2001, 2002. In studies of semantic ambiguity, homonyms represent one theoretically important type of item: Single word forms that are associated with two or more unrelated interpretations (e.g., the <river> and <money> interpretations of BANK, hereafter referred to in the form <river>/<money> BANK).…”

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Relative meaning frequencies for 578 homonyms in two Spanish dialects: A cross-linguistic extension of the English eDom norms

et al. 2015

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Relative meaning frequency is a critical factor to consider in studies of semantic ambiguity. In this work, we examined how this measure may change across the European and Rioplatense dialects of Spanish, as well as how the overall distributional properties differ between Spanish and English, using a computer-assisted norming approach based on dictionary definitions (Armstrong, Tokowicz, & Plaut, 2012). The results showed that the two dialects differ considerably in terms of the relative meaning frequencies of their constituent homonyms, and that the overall distributions of relative frequencies vary considerably across languages, as well. These results highlight the need for localized norms to design powerful studies of semantic ambiguity and suggest that dialectal differences may be responsible for some discrepant effects related to homonymy. In quantifying the reliability of the norms, we also established that as few as seven ratings are needed to converge on a highly stable set of ratings. This approach is therefore a very practical means of acquiring essential data in studies of semantic ambiguity, relative to past approaches, such as those based on the classification of free associates. The norms also present new possibilities for studying semantic ambiguity effects within and between populations who speak one or more languages. The norms and associated software are available for download at

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Section: External Validitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Relative meaning frequencies for 578 homonyms in two Spanish dialects: A cross-linguistic extension of the English eDom norms

et al. 2015

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“…Priming (response facilitation relative to unrelated control words) was stronger for metonymic than homonymous words whereas metaphors did not differ statistically from either of the two other types (Klepousniotou, 2002). These effects were explored further in a subsequent study in which participants made lexical decisions to ambiguous target words, which were presented in isolation interspersed with unambiguous control words and nonwords (Klepousniotou & Baum, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In one of just two behavioural studies exploring the possibility (Klepousniotou, 2002), participants listened to prime sentences after which they made lexical decisions to visually-presented related ambiguous words (homonyms, metonyms, or metaphors), unrelated (control) words or non-words (ISI of 0 ms).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustained meaning activation for polysemous but not homonymous words: Evidence from EEG

2015

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Theoretical linguistic accounts of lexical ambiguity distinguish between homonymy, where words that share a lexical form have unrelated meanings, and polysemy, where the meanings are related. The present study explored the psychological reality of this theoretical assumption by asking whether there is evidence that homonyms and polysemes are represented and processed differently in the brain. We investigated the time-course of meaning activation of different types of ambiguous words using EEG. Homonyms and polysemes were each further subdivided into two: unbalanced homonyms (e.g., "coach") and balanced homonyms (e.g., "match"); metaphorical polysemes (e.g., "mouth") and metonymic polysemes (e.g., "rabbit"). These four types of ambiguous words were presented as primes in a visual single-word priming delayed lexical decision task employing a long ISI (750 ms).Targets were related to one of the meanings of the primes, or were unrelated. ERPs formed relative to the target onset indicated that the theoretical distinction between homonymy and polysemy was reflected in the N400 brain response. For targets following homonymous primes (both unbalanced and balanced), no effects survived at this long ISI indicating that both meanings of the prime had already decayed. On the other hand, for polysemous primes (both metaphorical and metonymic), activation was observed for both dominant and subordinate senses. The observed processing differences between homonymy and polysemy provide evidence in support of differential neuro-cognitive representations for the two types of ambiguity. We argue that the polysemous senses act collaboratively to strengthen the representation, facilitating maintenance, while the competitive nature of homonymous meanings leads to decay.

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“…Furthermore, in a lexical decision task conducted in the participants' L1, they also responded faster to polysemous words than to words with a single meaning (Klepousniotou, 2002). From these results, we can hypothesize that the structure of polysemy in the L1 mental lexicon is somewhat different from both homonymy and words with only one meaning.…”

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confidence: 81%

The Organization of the Senses of Polysemy in Japanese EFL Learners’ Mental Lexicon

Hoshino¹,

Shimizu²

2018

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The structure of the mental lexicon has been widely researched, but few studies focusing on polysemy have been conducted, even in an L1 (a learner's first language) context, and almost no research has been conducted in an L2 (a learner's second language) context. The current study aims to scrutinize how the different vocabulary size groups of Japanese EFL learners classify the various senses of basic polysemous words and to compare their categorization with sense classification based on a linguistic dictionary. The results indicated that those with an estimated vocabulary size consisting of 5500 words or over (hereafter, the upper group) classified senses in a more similar way to the dictionary than those whose vocabulary size comprised 5000 or fewer words (hereafter, the lower group). This was despite the fact that they both understood the target context well and the number of categorizations created was almost the same between the two groups. Moreover, the upper group tended to classify the senses of polysemy in a more similar way to the other participants in the same vocabulary group, while the lower group's categorization was more divergent and less well-organized. These findings indicated that even though the participants understood each sense, the difference appeared in the ability to categorize the senses, suggesting that grouping the senses needs knowledge different from simply understanding them, and this knowledge is not yet fully developed even for basic words.

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The Processing of Lexical Ambiguity: Homonymy and Polysemy in the Mental Lexicon

Cited by 160 publications

References 39 publications

Relative meaning frequencies for 578 homonyms in two Spanish dialects: A cross-linguistic extension of the English eDom norms

Relative meaning frequencies for 578 homonyms in two Spanish dialects: A cross-linguistic extension of the English eDom norms

Sustained meaning activation for polysemous but not homonymous words: Evidence from EEG

The Organization of the Senses of Polysemy in Japanese EFL Learners’ Mental Lexicon

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