1887
  1. Home
  2. e-Journals
  3. The Mental Lexicon
  4. Volume 18, Issue 1
  5. Article
Volume 18, Issue 1
  • ISSN 1871-1340
  • E-ISSN: 1871-1375
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Abstract

This study examines speakers’ intuitions about novel word senses created through regular polysemy patterns. We investigate the effect of scalar regularity and lexical figure (metaphor vs. metonymy) on the identification of novel word senses, based on a detection experiment. It is shown that the more regular a polysemy pattern is, the less salient are the novel senses it produces, and that metaphorical patterns derive more salient novel senses than metonymic patterns. These results provide insights into the processing of novel word senses and support a non-homogeneous mental representation of regular polysemous words.

© 2023 John Benjamins Publishing Company
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/ml.21002.lom
2023-03-30
2026-02-13

  • From This Site

    /content/journals/10.1075/ml.21002.lom
    dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Journal -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
    10
    5
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Apresjan, J.
    (1974) Regular Polysemy. Linguistics, 1421, 5–32. 10.1515/ling.1974.12.142.5
     https://doi.org/10.1515/ling.1974.12.142.5 [Google Scholar]
  2. Baayen, R., Davidson, D. J., and Bates, D.
    (2008) Mixed-effects modeling with crossed random effects for subjects and items. Journal of Memory and Language, 591, 390–412. 10.1016/j.jml.2007.12.005
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2007.12.005 [Google Scholar]
  3. Barber, H. A., Otten, L. J., Kousta, S.-T., and Vigliocco, G.
    (2013) Concreteness in word processing: ERP and behavioral effects in a lexical decision task. Brain and Language, 1251, 47–50. 10.1016/j.bandl.2013.01.005
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2013.01.005 [Google Scholar]
  4. Barsalou, L. W.
    (2003) Abstraction in Perceptual Symbol Systems. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London, 3581, 1177–1187. 10.1098/rstb.2003.1319
     https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2003.1319 [Google Scholar]
  5. Bates, D., Maechler, M., Bolker, B., and Walker, S.
    (2014) lme4: Linear mixed effects models using eigen and s4. r package version 1.1–6. URL: CRAN.R-project.org/package=lme4
  6. Bastuji, J.
    (1974) Aspects de la néologie sémantique. Langages, 361, 6–19.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Ben Hariz Ouenniche, S.
    (2009) Diminuer les fluctuations du sentiment néologique. Neologica, 31, 37–51.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Bevilacqua, M., and Navigli, R.
    (2020) Breaking through the 80% glass ceiling: Raising the state of the art in Word Sense Disambiguation by incorporating knowledge graph information. InD. Jurafsky, J. Chai, N. Schluter, and J. Tetreault (Eds.), Proceedings of the 58th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (pp.2854–2864). URL: https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/2020.acl-main.0. 10.18653/v1/2020.acl‑main.255
     https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2020.acl-main.255 [Google Scholar]
  9. Bonin, P., Meot, A., and Bugaiska, A.
    (2018) Concreteness Norms for 1,659 French Words: Relationships with other Psycholinguistic Variables and Word Recognition Times. Behavior Research Methods, 501, 2366–2387. 10.3758/s13428‑018‑1014‑y
     https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-018-1014-y [Google Scholar]
  10. Brehm, L., and Alday, P. M.
    (2022) Contrast coding choices in a decade of mixed models. Journal of Memory and Language, 1251. 10.1016/j.jml.2022.104334
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2022.104334 [Google Scholar]
  11. Brocher, A., Koenig, J. P., Mauner, G., and Foraker, S.
    (2018) About sharing and commitment: the retrieval of biased and balanced irregular polysemes. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 33(4), 443–466. 10.1080/23273798.2017.1381748
     https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2017.1381748 [Google Scholar]
  12. Brown, S. W.
    (2008) Polysemy in the mental lexicon. Colorado Research in Linguistics, 211.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Catricalà, E., Della Rosa, P. A., Plebani, V., Vigliocco, G., and Cappa, S. F.
    (2014) Abstract and concrete categories? Evidences from neurodegenerative diseases. Neuropsychologia, 611, 271–281. 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.09.041
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.09.041 [Google Scholar]
  14. Copestake, A., and Briscoe, T.
    (1995) Semi-productive Polysemy and Sense Extension. Journal of Semantics, 12(1), 15–67. 10.1093/jos/12.1.15
     https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/12.1.15 [Google Scholar]
  15. Dölling, J.
    (2020) Systematic polysemy. InD. Gutzmann, L. Matthewson, C. Meier, H. Rullmann, and T. E. Zimmermann (Eds.), The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Semantics. 10.1002/9781118788516.sem099
     https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118788516.sem099 [Google Scholar]
  16. Duffy, S. A., Morris, R. K., and Rayner, K.
    (1988) Lexical ambiguity and fixation times in reading. Journal of Memory and Language, 271, 429–446. 10.1016/0749‑596X(88)90066‑6
     https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-596X(88)90066-6 [Google Scholar]
  17. Eckart, T., Elmiger, D., Kamber, A., and Quasthoff, U.
    (2013) Frequency Dictionary French. Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Eddington, C. M., and Tokowicz, N.
    (2015) How meaning similarity influences ambiguous word processing: The current state of the literature. Psychonomic bulletin and review, 22(1), 13–37. 10.3758/s13423‑014‑0665‑7
     https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-014-0665-7 [Google Scholar]
  19. Falkum, I. L., and Vicente, A.
    (2015) Polysemy: Current perspectives and approaches. Lingua, 1571, 1–16. 10.1016/j.lingua.2015.02.002
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2015.02.002 [Google Scholar]
  20. Frazier, L., and Rayner, K.
    (1990) Taking on semantic commitments : Processing multiple meanings vs. multiple senses. Journal of Memory and Language, 291, 181–200. 10.1016/0749‑596X(90)90071‑7
     https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-596X(90)90071-7 [Google Scholar]
  21. Frisson, S.
    (2009) Semantic Underspecification in Language Processing. Language and Linguistics Compass, 3(1), 111–127. 10.1111/j.1749‑818X.2008.00104.x
     https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-818X.2008.00104.x [Google Scholar]
  22. Frisson, S., and Pickering, M. J.
    (1999) The processing of metonymy: evidence from eye movements. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 25(6), 1366–1383.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Frisson, S., and Pickering, M.
    (2007) The processing of familiar and novel senses of a word: why reading Dickens is easy but reading Needham can be hard. Language and Cognitive Processes, 221, 595–613. 10.1080/01690960601017013
     https://doi.org/10.1080/01690960601017013 [Google Scholar]
  24. Gardin, B., Lefèvre, G., Marcellesi, C., and Mortureux, M. F.
    (1974) A propos du « sentiment néologique ». Langages, 361, 45–52. 10.3406/lgge.1974.2273
     https://doi.org/10.3406/lgge.1974.2273 [Google Scholar]
  25. Huyghe, R.
    (2015) Les typologies nominales : présentation. Langue Française, 1851, 5–27. 10.3917/lf.185.0005
     https://doi.org/10.3917/lf.185.0005 [Google Scholar]
  26. Jakubíček, M., Kilgarriff, A., Kovář, V., Rychlý, P., and Suchomel, V.
    (2013) The tenten corpus family. 7th International Corpus Linguistics Conference CL, 125–127.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Johnson, P. C. D.
    (2014) Extension Nakagawa and Schielzeth’s R2GLMM to random slopes models. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 51, 944–946. 10.1111/2041‑210X.12225
     https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.12225 [Google Scholar]
  28. Kleiber, G., and Vuillaume, M.
    (2011) Sémantique des odeurs. Langages, 1811, 17–36. 10.3917/lang.181.0017
     https://doi.org/10.3917/lang.181.0017 [Google Scholar]
  29. Klepousniotou, E.
    (2002) The Processing of Lexical Ambiguity: Homonymy and Polysemy in the Mental Lexicon. Brain and Language, 811, 205–223. 10.1006/brln.2001.2518
     https://doi.org/10.1006/brln.2001.2518 [Google Scholar]
  30. Klepousniotou, E., and Baum, S. R.
    (2007) Disambiguating the ambiguity advantage effect in word recognition: An advantage for polysemous but not homonymous words. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 20(1), 1–24. 10.1016/j.jneuroling.2006.02.001
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneuroling.2006.02.001 [Google Scholar]
  31. Klepousniotou, E., Titone, D., and Romero, C.
    (2008) Making sense of word senses: the comprehension of polysemy depends on sense overlap. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 34(6), 1534–1543.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Klepousniotou, E., Pike, G. B., Steinhauer, K., and Gracco, V.
    (2012) Not all ambiguous words are created equal: An EEG investigation of homonymy and polysemy. Brain and language, 123(1), 11–21. 10.1016/j.bandl.2012.06.007
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2012.06.007 [Google Scholar]
  33. Lombard, A., Huyghe, R., and Gygax, P.
    (2021) Neological intuition in French: a study of formal novelty and lexical regularity as predictors. Lingua, 2541. 10.1016/j.lingua.2021.103055
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2021.103055 [Google Scholar]
  34. Lopukhina, A., Laurinavichyute, A., Lopukhin, K., and Dragoy, O.
    (2018) The Mental Representation of Polysemy across Word Classes. Frontiers in Psychology, 91. 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00192
     https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00192 [Google Scholar]
  35. Maciejewski, G., Rodd, J. M., Mon-Williams, M., and Klepousniotou, E.
    (2020) The cost of learning new meanings for familiar words. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 35(2), 188–210. 10.1080/23273798.2019.1642500
     https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2019.1642500 [Google Scholar]
  36. Murphy, G. L.
    (2006) Comprehending new words beyond their original contexts. Skase Journal of Theoretical Linguistics, 3(2), 2–8.
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Nakagawa, S., and Schielzeth, H.
    (2013) A general and simple method for obtaining R2 from Generalized Linear Mixed-effects Models. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 4(2), 133–142. 10.1111/j.2041‑210x.2012.00261.x
     https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-210x.2012.00261.x [Google Scholar]
  38. Nunberg, G.
    (1995) Transfers of Meaning. Journal of Semantics, 12(2), 109–132. 10.1093/jos/12.2.109
     https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/12.2.109 [Google Scholar]
  39. Nunberg, G., and Zaenen, A.
    (1992) Systematic polysemy in lexicology and lexicography. InH. Tommola, K. Varantola, T. Salmi-Tolonen, and J. Schopp (Eds.), Proceedings of the Euralex II (pp.386–396). University of Tampere.
     [Google Scholar]
  40. Peters, W., and Kilgarriff, A.
    (2000) Discovering semantic regularity in lexical resources. International Journal of Lexicography, 13(4), 287–312. 10.1093/ijl/13.4.287
     https://doi.org/10.1093/ijl/13.4.287 [Google Scholar]
  41. Pylkkänen, L., Llinás, R., and Murphy, G. L.
    (2006) The representation of polysemy: MEG evidence. Journal of cognitive neuroscience, 18(1), 97–109. 10.1162/089892906775250003
     https://doi.org/10.1162/089892906775250003 [Google Scholar]
  42. Pustejovsky, J.
    (1995) The generative lexicon. MIT press.
     [Google Scholar]
  43. R Core Team
    R Core Team (2015) R: A language and environment for statistical computing. URL: www.R-project.org/
  44. Rabagliati, H., and Snedeker, J.
    (2013) The truth about chickens and bats: Ambiguity avoidance distinguishes types of polysemy. Psychological science, 24(7), 1354–1360. 10.1177/0956797612472205
     https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612472205 [Google Scholar]
  45. Renouf, A.
    (2013) A finer definition of neology in English: The life-cycle of a word. Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 571, 177–208. 10.1075/scl.57.14ren
     https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.57.14ren [Google Scholar]
  46. Rodd, J. M., Berriman, R., Landau, M., Lee, T., Ho, C., Gaskell, M. G., and Davis, M. H.
    (2012) Learning new meanings for old words: effects of semantic relatedness. Memory and Cognition, 40(7), 1095–1108. 10.3758/s13421‑012‑0209‑1
     https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-012-0209-1 [Google Scholar]
  47. Sablayrolles, J. F.
    (2003) Le sentiment néologique. InJ. F. Sablayrolles (ed.), L’Innovation lexicale (pp.279–295). Paris: Champion.
     [Google Scholar]
  48. Schumacher, Petra B.
    (2014) Content and Context in Incremental Processing: “The Ham Sandwich” Revisited. Philosophical Studies, 168, 1, 151–165. 10.1007/s11098‑013‑0179‑6
     https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-013-0179-6 [Google Scholar]
  49. Schwanenflugel, P. J., and Shoben, E. J.
    (1983) Differential Context Effects in the Comprehension of Abstract and Concrete Verbal Materials. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 9(1), 82–102.
     [Google Scholar]
  50. Smyk-Bhattacharjee, D.
    (2009) Lexical Innovation on the Internet – Neologisms in Blogs. PHD thesis presented to theFaculty of Arts of the University of Zurich.
     [Google Scholar]
  51. Tokowicz, N., and Kroll, J. F.
    (2007) Number of meanings and concreteness: Consequences of ambiguity within and across languages. Language and Cognitive Processes, 22(5), 727–779. 10.1080/01690960601057068
     https://doi.org/10.1080/01690960601057068 [Google Scholar]
  52. Van de Velde, D.
    (1995) Le spectre nominal : Des noms de matières aux noms d’abstractions. Louvain : Peeters.
     [Google Scholar]
  53. Weiland-Breckle, H., and Schumacher, P. B.
    (2017) Artist-for-work metonymy: Type clash or underspecification?The Mental Lexicon, 12(2), 219–233. 10.1075/ml.16014.wei
     https://doi.org/10.1075/ml.16014.wei [Google Scholar]
  54. Yurchenko, A., Lopukhina, A., and Dragoy, O.
    (2020) Metaphor Is Between Metonymy and Homonymy: Evidence From Event-Related Potentials. Frontiers in Psychology, 111. 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02113
     https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02113 [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/ml.21002.lom
Loading
Regular polysemy and novel word-sense identification
The Mental Lexicon 18, 94 (2023); https://doi.org/10.1075/ml.21002.lom
/content/journals/10.1075/ml.21002.lom
/content/journals/10.1075/ml.21002.lom
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): metaphor; metonymy; neological intuition; novel word sense; regular polysemy

Most Cited

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error