Meaning Relatedness in Polysemous and Homonymous Words: An Erp Study in Russian

15 Pages Posted: 30 Nov 2018

See all articles by Anna Yurchenko

Anna Yurchenko

National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow)

Anastasiya Lopukhina

National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow)

Olga Dragoy

National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow)

Date Written: November 27, 2018

Abstract

Previous research showed that polysemous and homonymous words are processed differently. However, mechanisms underlying processing of ambiguous words are still unclear. The goal of the present study was to investigate comprehension of metonymies, metaphors, and homonyms using priming paradigm and the method of event-related potentials (ERPs). We asked participants to read two-word phrases with ambiguous words and make a sensicality judgement. The results demonstrated the difference between metonymic and metaphorical senses of polysemous words in the amount of priming for the literal sense. The priming effect between metonymic and literal senses supports the idea that these senses share a single representation in the mental lexicon. In contrast, metaphorical senses of polysemous words showed a very limited priming effect on literal senses of the same words. Similar results were observed for different meanings of homonymous words. We conclude that metaphorical senses should have separate representations in the mental lexicon similarly to homonyms.

Keywords: ambiguous words, metonymy, metaphor, homonymy, event-related potentials, the Russian language

JEL Classification: Z

Suggested Citation

Yurchenko, Anna and Lopukhina, Anastasiya and Dragoy, Olga, Meaning Relatedness in Polysemous and Homonymous Words: An Erp Study in Russian (November 27, 2018). Higher School of Economics Research Paper No. WP BRP 67/LNG/2018, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3291173 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3291173

Anna Yurchenko (Contact Author)

National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow) ( email )

Myasnitskaya street, 20
Moscow, Moscow 119017
Russia

Anastasiya Lopukhina

National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow) ( email )

Myasnitskaya street, 20
Moscow, Moscow 119017
Russia

Olga Dragoy

National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow) ( email )

Myasnitskaya street, 20
Moscow, Moscow 119017
Russia

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