I am looking for research which confirms that we are able to hold more than one meaning for a word in our mind. There are a number of references on Internet, but I would like a recommendation of articles from someone who has read on this subject. The reason is that one theory of "some and any" -my chosen PhD subject-is based on the Psychomechanics of Language, a theory which postulates that our mental representation of words is of necessity monosemic. The argument is that one "potential meaning" is held in "tongue" , a concept similar to Saussure's" langue", and that the interaction with context enables a subdivision of "actual meanings" in "discourse", a concept similar to "parole". While I am able, in my view, to provide a solid theoretical counterargument to the Psychomechanics position, I would like to locate some articles that support my position empirically.
Here are some articles. My personal opinion is
that polysemy is nothing wondrous. It's
everone's own decision what meaning a
word should be given. If I want to let
the word 'wumpus' mean washing machine,
then that's my own decision, and if I
want 'wumpus' to mean washing machine
in context a and pub in context b, then
that's my own decision as well.
It has nothing to do with a special
brain architecture but is the consequence
of the ability that people can
store meaning.
http://phys.org/news/2014-06-ambiguous-words-easier.html
http://phys.org/news/2013-05-ambiguous-world-words.html
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10012-semantic-memory-pinpointed-in-the-brain/
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21628914-500-mind-reading-scan-locates-site-of-meaning-in-the-brain/
https://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2012/10/mental-imagery-gives-language-meaning.html
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-11/cmu-cmr112414.php
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17263-why-your-brain-just-cant-remember-that-word
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/11/15/3366348.htm
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/world/2006/09/06/scientists-identify-brains-concept-control-core/
Regards,
Joachim
Studies in psycholinguistics have demonstrated that in terms of representation, polysemous words are stored centered on a core sense, and other senses are dependent upon this core sense, both behavioral and ERP studies have results in favor of this position. If you google "lexical access polysemy" you will get many valuable materials.
Thank you Joachim, Matthew and Jyh for your answers. Matthew, what you say about words being stored around a core sense is intuitively appealing and is confirmed by my initial readings on the subject. However, that's not the same as saying that only one sense is stored in the mind and that the other senses are all entirely context-determined. This is what is claimed by an author of a major article on" some and any", who works within the framework of the Psychomechanics of Language. The article is highly original, very interesting and has many useful pointers, but I disagree with the claim that words can only be polysemous in context.
Of course. It's Hirtle, W.H (1988) Some and any: exploring the system in Linguistics 26 (1988), 443-477. Although, to my knowledge, the description of some and any is entirely Hirtle's own, it is based on Gustave Guillaume's theory the Psychomechanics of Language.
These provide some interesting pointers.
Note: the methodology looks at 3 English speakers only. Nonetheless, there is sufficient cross-subject similarity to suspect that there are semantic domain specific regions of the cortex. The generalisation to polysemy will take some further refinement.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v532/n7600/fig_tab/nature17637_SF12.html
http://gallantlab.org/index.php/publications/natural-speech-reveals-the-semantic-maps-that-tile-human-cerebral-cortex/
Humor research including eeg scanning (initiated by Peter Derks in the 90s) show spikes for 'double entendre' such as the semantic process underlying puns:
A Buddhist walks up to a hotdog stand and says "Make me one with everything."
Without polysemy no joke.
Also worth looking at Rachel Giora's work on Salience, there is a book but most of the articles, which may be more useful, show up on a straight google search of 'graded salience Giora'. Thanks Per, your pointer to humour brought salience back to my mind.
To Dennis: Giora's graded salience is a fine idea. So differently salient representations can be co-present in our conscious mind, as happens in conceptual blending (Cf. "How to make sense of a blend", 2005). Note that in the Buddhist joke, the sentence, "Make me…" shifts its semantic salience without changing the salience of any word meaning! It's not a lexical phenomenon. It's the (semantics of) syntax that's doing the work: … me one … :)
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