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Article published In: The Mental Lexicon
Vol. 10:1 (2015) ► pp.133–151

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Connecting the research fields of lexical ambiguity and figures of speech

Polysemy effects for conventional metaphors and metonyms

 | University of Aberdeen
 | University of Aberdeen
Published online: 1 May 2015
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ml.10.1.05jag
The current studies investigated the processing and storage of lexical metaphors and metonyms by combining two existing methodologies from ambiguity research: counting the number of senses (as in e.g., Rodd, Gaskell, & Marslen-Wilson, 2002) and determining the relationship between those senses (as in e.g., Klepousniotou & Baum, 2007). We have called these two types of ambiguity ‘numerical polysemy’ and ‘relational polysemy’. Studies employing a lexical decision task (Experiment 1) and semantic categorization task (Experiment 2) compared processing of metaphorical and non-metaphorical words while controlling for number of senses. The effects of relational polysemy were investigated in more detail with a further lexical decision study (Experiment 3). Results showed a metaphor advantage and metonymy disadvantage which conflict with earlier findings of reverse patterns (e.g., Klepousniotou & Baum, 2007). The fact that both conventional lexical metaphors and metonyms can incur either processing advantages or disadvantages strongly suggests they are not inherently stored differently in the mental lexicon.
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Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Li, Jiangtian & Blair C. Armstrong
2025. Issues of Generalization From Unreliable or Unrepresentative Stimuli: Broad Lessons From Lexical Ambiguity. Open Mind 9 ► pp. 1185 ff. DOI logo
Apresjan, Valentina, Anastasiya Lopukhina & Maria Zarifyan
2021. Representation of Different Types of Adjectival Polysemy in the Mental Lexicon. Frontiers in Psychology 12 DOI logo
Maciejewski, Greg, Jennifer M. Rodd, Mark Mon-Williams & Ekaterini Klepousniotou
2020. The cost of learning new meanings for familiar words. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience 35:2 ► pp. 188 ff. DOI logo
Lopukhina, Anastasiya, Anna Laurinavichyute, Konstantin Lopukhin & Olga Dragoy
2018. The Mental Representation of Polysemy across Word Classes. Frontiers in Psychology 9 DOI logo

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