Abstract

I argue that the received view in the literature on polysemy representation, according to which the senses associated with a polyseme are stored together in a single lexical entry, is untenable. While the received view manages to account for parts of the data coming from empirical studies on ambiguity processing and resolution, it fails to account for an important part of it. As a result, the received view is caught up in an explanatory dilemma which I dub the continuum puzzle. The best way of escaping this puzzle, I then argue, is to give up the received view’s core thesis in favor of an alternative view that is consistent with the available data. Reaching such an alternative will require rejecting the following pervasive, but ill-motivated, assumption: Differences in ambiguity processing and resolution can only be explained by stipulating corresponding differences in the architecture of our mental lexicons

Zoom-link