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Lexical ambiguity is pervasive in language, and the nature of the representations of an ambiguous word's multiple meanings is yet to be fully understood. With a special focus on Chinese characters, the present study first established that native speaker's perception about a character's number of meanings was heavily influenced by the availability of its distinct word formations, while whether these meanings would be perceived to be closely related was driven by further conceptual analysis. These notions were operationalized as two computed metrics, which assessed the degree of dispersion across individual word formations and the degree of propinquity across clusters of word formations, respectively, in a distributional semantic space. The observed correlations between the computed and the perceived metrics indicated that the utility of word formations to tap into meaning representations of Chinese characters was indeed cognitively plausible. The results have demonstrated the extent to which distributional semantics could inform about meaning representations of Chinese characters, which has theoretical implications for the representation of ambiguous words more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some words have more than one translation across languages. Such translation-ambiguous words are harder to learn, recognize, and produce for individuals across the language learning spectrum. Past research demonstrates that learning both translations of translation-ambiguous words on consecutive trials confers an accuracy advantage relative to learning them on separate sessions. We tested the proposal that presenting the two translations of translation-ambiguous words simultaneously on the screen could facilitate the formation of a more integrated mapping, because this would enable learners to make direct comparisons between them, whether implicitly or explicitly. We predicted that this facilitation would especially hold for translation-ambiguous words with related translations. Fifty native English speakers learned 48 German words with one or two translations that varied in the meaning similarity of their translations. Paired associate training took place on a Monday, and a first language (L1) to second language (L2) translation production test took place on Wednesday and Friday. Generally, higher translation similarity facilitated translation speed. In accuracy, training condition interacted with the similarity of the translations; translation accuracy was more affected by translation similarity in the simultaneous condition and went up as similarity increased. Overall, the consecutive condition demonstrated higher accuracy and faster reaction times than the simultaneous training condition, suggesting that learners may have been unable to successfully divide their study time between multiple words on the screen without explicit instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates whether human masculine plural noun phrases (NPs) in Spanish, which can be interpreted with an exclusively masculine or a mixed-gender meaning, are a case of balanced or unbalanced ambiguity. The results of an experiment using a sentence continuation task with oral stimuli are consistent with the claim that masculine grammatical gender biases listeners toward an exclusively masculine interpretation. The acceptance rate of continuations with the pronoun uno/una referring to a masculine plural antecedent showed that the exclusively masculine meaning of the NP is accessed more frequently and involves a lower cognitive cost than the mixed-gender interpretation. Further, this effect interacts with the stereotypicality of the noun: nouns independently established to carry a masculine stereotype are less likely to be associated with a mixed-gender interpretation. The study also found that the speakers' attitudes toward nonsexist language predict their acceptance of the mixed-gender interpretation of masculine NPs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do learners gather new information during word learning? One possibility is that learners selectively sample items that help them reduce uncertainty about new word meanings. In a series of cross‐situational word learning tasks with adults and children, we manipulated the referential ambiguity of label‐object pairs experienced during training and subsequently investigated which words participants chose to sample additional information about. In the first experiment, adult learners chose to receive additional training on object‐label associations that reduce referential ambiguity during cross‐situational word learning. This ambiguity‐reduction strategy was related to improved test performance. In two subsequent experiments, we found that, at least in some contexts, children (3–8 years of age) show a similar preference to seek information about words experienced in ambiguous word learning situations. In Experiment 2, children did not preferentially select object‐label associations that remained ambiguous during cross‐situational word learning. However, in a third experiment that increased the relative ambiguity of two sets of novel object‐label associations, we found evidence that children preferentially make selections that reduce ambiguity about novel word meanings. These results carry implications for understanding how children actively contribute to their own language development by seeking information that supports learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the effect of word class on the acquisition of L2 ambiguous words using electroencephalogram (EEG) technology. We asked Chinese (L1)-English (L2) bilinguals to learn a set of English pseudowords paired with one or two semantically unrelated Chinese meanings, including pseudowords paired with an unambiguous noun meaning (N-unA), pseudowords paired with two noun meanings (NN), and pseudowords paired with a noun meaning and a verb meaning (NV). We recorded three ERP components during learning: P200, N400, and LPC. Behavioral results showed that it was easier to learn ambiguous words with two noun meanings than those with one noun and one verb meaning; unambiguous words were learned better than ambiguous words. The ERP results showed that NV elicited larger P200 and LPC than NN, whereas NN elicited larger N400 than NV, suggesting that the word class of different meanings impacts L2 ambiguous word acquisition, and this word class effect can occur at the initial memory encoding stage of learning. Overall, our results revealed the specific effect of word class on the acquisition of L2 ambiguous words. • We used ERPs to study syntactic category effect on L2 ambiguous word acquisition. • We recorded three ERP components during learning: P200, N400, and LPC. • It was easier to acquire L2 ambiguous words with two noun meanings. • The syntactic category effect can occur at the early encoding stage of word learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most words are ambiguous: Individual word forms (e.g., run) can map onto multiple different interpretations depending on their sentence context (e.g., the athlete/politician/river runs). Models of word-meaning access must therefore explain how listeners and readers can rapidly settle on a single, contextually appropriate meaning for each word that they encounter. I present a new account of word-meaning access that places semantic disambiguation at its core and integrates evidence from a wide variety of experimental approaches to explain this key aspect of language comprehension. The model has three key characteristics. (a) Lexical-semantic knowledge is viewed as a high-dimensional space; familiar word meanings correspond to stable states within this lexical-semantic space. (b) Multiple linguistic and paralinguistic cues can influence the settling process by which the system resolves on one of these familiar meanings. (c) Learning mechanisms play a vital role in facilitating rapid word-meaning access by shaping and maintaining high-quality lexical-semantic knowledge throughout the life span. In contrast to earlier models of word-meaning access, I highlight individual differences in lexical-semantic knowledge: Each person's lexicon is uniquely structured by specific, idiosyncratic linguistic experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has shown that adults are skilled at learning new words and meanings. We examined whether learning new meanings for familiar words affects the processing of their existing meanings. Adults learnt fictitious meanings for previously unambiguous words over four consecutive days. We tested comprehension of existing meanings using a semantic relatedness decision task in which the probe word was related to the existing but not the new meaning. Following the training, responses were slower to the trained, but not to the untrained, words, indicating competition between newly-acquired and well-established meanings. This effect was smaller for meanings that were semantically related to existing meanings than for the unrelated counterparts, demonstrating that meaning relatedness modulates the degree of competition. Overall, the findings confirm that new meanings can be integrated into the mental lexicon after just a few days' exposure, and provide support for current models of ambiguity processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Wernicke and Broca are two essential types of aphasia in which patients' productive and comprehensive abilities are affected, respectively. Although the lexico-semantic knowledge, as the heart of language comprehension, has been investigated in many research studies, there are still some controversies regarding the nature of probable lexical deficits in these patients. This study tried to delve into this issue and provide a plausible explanation in the Persian setting. Materials and Methods: In doing so, 6 patients with Broca Aphasia (BA), 6 patients with Wernicke Aphasia (WA), and 12 healthy age- and education-matched monolingual controls were selected. Conducting a lexical decision task, each patient was required to decide whether the third word of an auditory presented triplet was meaningful or not. The first and last words of the triplet were related or unrelated to the ambiguous middle word. Results: The results showed the similarity of the performance of WA patients to that of healthy control. That is, the context shaped by the first word facilitated the activation of the third word. Thus, they exhibited selected access to different meanings of ambiguous words as the healthy controls did. In contrast, semantic facilitation was not observed in BA patients. Conclusion: Our results supported the previous findings asserting the intactness of semantic representation in WA patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The topic of the given research is connected with the investigation of there sentences in English The word there is a polysemeous word and can be a pronoun or an adverb. As a pronoun it can be used as the subject of the verb 'be' to say that something exists or does not exist, or to draw attention to it; in front of certain verbs when you are saying that something exists, develops, or can be seen. Whether the verb is singular or plural depends on the noun which follows the verb; The word there can be used in the form of convention. It is used after 'hello' or 'hi' when you are greeting someone. When the word there is used as an adverb its semantics varies. The question of how the two ways of using there originated also plays some part in synchronic treatments, as reflected in recent developments in linguistics. In the field of generative grammar, defining the categorial status and syntactic function of there is of central importance. Grammarians are unanimous in their view that the there is often a subject in a sentence. However, there is disagreement about whether there is introduced transformationally, or whether it is already present in the syntactic deep structure. Proponents of generative grammar separate nominal there very strictly from adverbial there. They tend to regard the identity of form as coincidental. Syntactic analyses contribute little or nothing about the semantics of there. Characteristic of this is the recurrent description of there as "dummy there", indicating that it has no meaning. But we should say that in spite of the fact that dummy words have no meaning they do have a grammatical function. The author investigates syntax and semantics of the word 'there'. In the article the ambiguity of sentences with the word 'there' and its emphatic characteristics are shown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Translations often do not align directly across languages, and indirect mappings reduce the accuracy of language learning. To facilitate examination of this issue, we developed a new continuous measure for quantifying the semantic relatedness of words with more than one translation (hereafter translation-ambiguous words). Participants rated the similarity of each translation to every other translation, yielding a Translation Semantic Variability (TSV) score, ranging from 1.00 (unrelated) to 7.00 (related). Then, we determined how relatedness between translations affects translation-ambiguous word learning from German to English. German words with low TSV scores were recognized as translations more slowly and less accurately than German words with high TSV scores. TSV explains unique variance beyond the previously-used dichotomous classification of words as form vs. meaning ambiguous. We propose that the relatedness of the translation alternatives influences learning because it affects the ease with which a one-to-one mapping can be established between form and meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Syntactic priming without lexical overlap is well-documented in language production. In contrast, reading-time comprehension studies, which typically use locally ambiguous sentences, generally find syntactic priming only with lexical overlap. This asymmetry has led some researchers to propose that distinct mechanisms underlie the comprehension and production of syntactic structure. Instead, we propose that methodological differences in how priming is assessed are largely responsible for the asymmetry: in comprehension, lexical biases in a locally ambiguous target sentence may overwhelm the influence of syntactic priming effects on a reader’s interpretation. We addressed these issues in a self-paced reading study by (1) using target sentences containing global attachment ambiguities, (2) examining a syntactic structure which does not involve an argument of the verb, and (3) factoring out the unavoidable lexical biases associated with the target sentences in a mixed-effects regression model. Under these conditions, syntactic priming affected how ambiguous sentences were parsed, and facilitated reading times when target sentences were parsed using the primed structure. This resolves discrepancies among previous findings, and suggests that the same mechanism underlies syntactic priming in comprehension and production. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Words that are homonyms-that is, for which a single written and spoken form is associated with multiple, unrelated interpretations, such as COMPOUND, which can denote an < enclosure > or a < composite > meaning-are an invaluable class of items for studying word and discourse comprehension. When using homonyms as stimuli, it is critical to control for the relative frequencies of each interpretation, because this variable can drastically alter the empirical effects of homonymy. Currently, the standard method for estimating these frequencies is based on the classification of free associates generated for a homonym, but this approach is both assumption-laden and resource-demanding. Here, we outline an alternative norming methodology based on explicit ratings of the relative meaning frequencies of dictionary definitions. To evaluate this method, we collected and analyzed data in a norming study involving 544 English homonyms, using the eDom norming software that we developed for this purpose. Dictionary definitions were generally sufficient to exhaustively cover word meanings, and the methods converged on stable norms with fewer data and less effort on the part of the experimenter. The predictive validity of the norms was demonstrated in analyses of lexical decision data from the English Lexicon Project (Balota et al., Behavior Research Methods, 39, 445-459, ), and from Armstrong and Plaut (Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 2223-2228, ). On the basis of these results, our norming method obviates relying on the unsubstantiated assumptions involved in estimating relative meaning frequencies on the basis of classification of free associates. Additional details of the norming procedure, the meaning frequency norms, and the source code, standalone binaries, and user manual for the software are available at . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Among different types of metaphors, lexical metaphors are special in that they have been highly lexicalized and often suggested to be processed like non-metaphorical words. The present study examined two types of Chinese metaphorical words which are conceptualized through body parts. One has both a metaphorical meaning and a literal meaning actively in use, with the former dominant over the latter, referred to as the Met+Lit words. The other has only metaphorical meaning, referred to as Met-only words. In two experiments, lexical metaphor words were presented following a body-related picture and participants judged whether the picture and word were semantically related (Experiment 1) or made lexical decision on the word ignoring the picture (Experiment 2). The N400 ERP responses showed a clear semantic priming effect for the Met+Lit words compared with the non-ambiguous neutral words, with latencies comparable to that in Met-only words in both experiments. The results were interpreted to indicate that the literal meaning as a subordinate meaning was activated during the early comprehension of conventional lexical metaphors, supporting the notion of dual access to metaphorical meaning and literal meaning in metaphor processing. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Perception is a product of the interaction between bottom-up sensory processing and top-down higher order cognitive activity. For example, when the initial phoneme of a word is obliterated and replaced with noise, listeners hear it as intact provided there is semantic context. We modified this phonemic restoration paradigm by masking (not obliterating) the initial phoneme of a target word and presenting it within a carrier phrase which was informative (I), uninformative (U), or misinformative (M). Bias in favor of top-down context was measured as the extent to which M trials mislead listeners into reporting a target word other than that which was presented (relative to U trials that have irrelevant top-down semantic context). Forty-one participants (20 men) completed 600 test trials (300 delayed report of the phrase, 300 forced choice). Relative to the U condition, women were more affected by both the I and M cues than men, at certain levels of audibility during the forced choice condition. Moreover, the semantic strength of the I carrier phrases was correlated with the rate of correct reports of the target words in women but not in men. This suggests that women can be more affected by top-down semantic context than men. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Motivation: Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD), automatically identifying the meaning of ambiguous words in context, is an important stage of text processing. This article presents a graph-based approach to WSD in the biomedical domain. The method is unsupervised and does not require any labeled training data. It makes use of knowledge from the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) Metathesaurus which is represented as a graph. A state-of-the-art algorithm, Personalized PageRank, is used to perform WSD.Results: When evaluated on the NLM-WSD dataset, the algorithm outperforms other methods that rely on the UMLS Metathesaurus alone.Availability: The WSD system is open source licensed and available from http://ixa2.si.ehu.es/ukb/. The UMLS, MetaMap program and NLM-WSD corpus are available from the National Library of Medicine http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/umls/, http://mmtx.nlm.nih.gov and http://wsd.nlm.nih.gov. Software to convert the NLM-WSD corpus into a format that can be used by our WSD system is available from http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/∼marks/biomedical_wsd under open source license.Contact: m.stevenson@dcs.shef.ac.uk [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Recent research suggests that the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) plays a role in selecting semantic information from among competing alternatives. A key question remains as to whether the LIFG is engaged by the selection of semantic information only or by increased semantic competition in and of itself, especially when such competition is implicit in nature. Ambiguous words presented in a lexical context provide a means of examining whether the LIFG is recruited under conditions when contextual cues constrain selection to only the meaning appropriate to the context (e.g., coin-mint-money) or under conditions of increased competition when contextual cues do not allow for the resolution to a particular meaning (e.g., candy-mint-money). In this event-related fMRI study, an implicit task was used in which subjects made lexical (i.e., word/nonword) decisions on the third stimulus of auditorily presented triplets in conditions where the lexical context either promoted resolution toward a particular ambiguous word meaning or enhanced the competition among ambiguous word meanings. LIFG activation was observed when the context allowed for the resolution of competition and hence the selection of one meaning (e.g., coin-mint-money) but failed to emerge when competition between the meanings of an ambiguous word was unresolved by the context (e.g., candy-mint-money). In the latter case, there was a pattern of reduced activation in frontal, temporal and parietal areas. These findings demonstrate that selection or resolution of competition as opposed to increased semantic competition alone engages the LIFG. Moreover, they extend previous work in showing that the LIFG is recruited even in cases where the selection of meaning takes place implicitly. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We examined the effects of concreteness and ambiguity on language processing. In Experiment 1, English-Spanish bilinguals translated words with a single translation. Contrary to past findings, we observed no concrete-word advantage in translation latency. In Experiment 2, English-Spanish bilinguals translated words with one and more than one translation. Words with multiple translations were translated more slowly and showed the typical concrete-word advantage. Words with one translation showed a reversal of the typical concrete-word advantage in latency. Further, concrete words were uninfluenced by ambiguity. In Experiment 3, we explored whether the interaction between concreteness and ambiguity was a general property of the language processing system. Supporting this idea, in a monolingual lexical decision task, we found an interaction between concreteness and number of meanings analogous to the interaction in translation. We discuss the common mechanism that may lead to this interaction in both within and cross-language processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We investigated the neural correlates of semantic priming by using event-related fMRI to record blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) responses while participants performed speeded lexical decisions (word/nonword) on visually presented related versus unrelated prime–target pairs. A long stimulus onset asynchrony of 1000 ms was employed, which allowed for increased controlled processing and selective frequency-based ambiguity priming. Conditions included an ambiguous word prime (e.g. bank) and a target related to its dominant (e.g. money) or subordinate meaning (e.g. river). Compared to an unrelated condition, primed dominant targets were associated with increased activity in the LIFG, the right anterior cingulate and superior temporal gyrus, suggesting postlexical semantic integrative mechanisms, while increased right supramarginal activity for the unrelated condition was consistent with expectancy based priming. Subordinate targets were not primed and were associated with reduced activity primarily in occipitotemporal regions associated with word recognition, which may be consistent with frequency-based meaning suppression. These findings provide new insights into the neural substrates of semantic priming and the functional–anatomic correlates of lexical ambiguity suppression mechanisms. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

An ambiguity disadvantage (slower responses for ambiguous words, e.g., bank, than for unambiguous words) has been reported in semantic tasks (L. R. Gottlob, S. D. Goldinger, G. O. Stone, & G. C. Van Orden, 1999; Y. Hino, S. J. Lupker, & P. M. Pexman, 2002; C. D. Piercey & S. Joordens, 2000) and has been attributed to the meaning activation process. The authors tested an alternative explanation: The ambiguity disadvantage arises from the decision-making process in semantic tasks. The authors examined effects of ambiguity on unrelated trials in a relatedness decision task, because these trials are free from response competition created by ambiguous words on related trials. Results showed no ambiguity effect on unrelated trials (Experiments 2, 3c, and 5c) and an ambiguity disadvantage on related trials (Experiments 3a, 3b, 5a, and 5b). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the theoretical assumption that lexical ambiguity is not a homogeneous phenomenon, but rather that it is subdivided into two distinct types, namely homonymy and polysemy, the present study investigated whether these different types of lexical ambiguity are psychologically real. Four types of ambiguous words, homonymous words (e.g., “pen”), polysemous words with metaphorical extensions (e.g., “eye”), polysemous words with a count/mass metonymic extension (e.g., “turkey”), and polysemous words with a producer/product metonymic extension (e.g., “Dali”), were used in a cross-modal sentence-priming lexical decision task. Overall, the theoretical distinction between homonymy and polysemy was reflected in the results of the present study, which revealed differential processing depending on the type of ambiguity. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Discusses issues on the existence of word meanings. Reaffirmation of the argument, on the basis of recent work in corpus analysis, that checklist theories in their current form are superficial and misleading; Redundancy of natural language processing; Identification of words with different meanings.

Describes the effect of hostile context in resolving the ambiguity of stimulus words. Role of hostility in the life history of juvenile delinquents; Basis of the characteristics of prior context; Details on the production of hostile associates.

Is language designed for communicative and functional efficiency? G. K. Zipf famously argued that shorter words are more frequent because they are easier to use, thereby resulting in the statistical law that bears his name. Yet, G. A. Miller showed that even a monkey randomly typing at a keyboard, and intermittently striking the space bar, would generate "words" with similar statistical properties. Recent quantitative analyses of human language lexicons (Piantadosi et al., 2012) have revived Zipf's functionalist hypothesis. Ambiguous words tend to be short, frequent, and easy to articulate in language production. Such statistical findings are commonly interpreted as evidence for pressure for efficiency, as the context of language use often provides cues to overcome lexical ambiguity. In this study, we update Miller's monkey thought experiment to incorporate empirically motivated phonological and semantic constraints on the creation of words. We claim that the appearance of communicative efficiency is a spandrel (Gould & Lewontin, 1979), as lexicons formed without the context of language use or reference to communication or efficiency exhibit comparable statistical properties. Furthermore, the updated monkey model provides a good fit for the growth trajectory of English as recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary. Focusing on the history of English words since 1900, we show that lexicons resulting from the monkey model provide a better embodiment of communicative efficiency than the actual lexicon of English. We conclude by arguing for the need to go beyond correlational statistics and to seek direct evidence for the mechanisms that underlie principles of language design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]