Semantic ambiguity in the lexical access of verbs: how data from monolinguals and bilinguals inform a general model of the mental lexicon

摘要

This thesis describes an extensive norming study of Spanish verbs and an online languageprocessing study investigating whether bilingual lexical processing is nonselective (bothlanguages are activated) when only one language is required for use. To study bilingual lexicalprocessing, researchers have relied upon words of shared orthography and semantics betweenlanguages in order to determine how word form and meaning impact bilingual word recognition.However, because these words have been of exact form overlap through cognates (words sharingform and meaning between languages: banana in Spanish and English) and homographs (wordssharing form yet differing in meaning: the English adjective red meaning net in Spanish), it hasbeen difficult to distinguish which language(s) participants engage during processing tasks. Thepresent research addresses this issue by investigating cognate and homographic verbs betweenlanguages. Because differences in verb morphology between Spanish and English never result inexact form overlap between languages (e.g., assist and asistir), interlingual cognate andhomographic verbs between Spanish and English should ensure that participants operate in onespecific language. Hence, utilizing verbs provides an original testing ground to determine if thebilingual language processor is nonselective when operating in one language and to what degreethe access depends on form and meaning overlap between languages. An extensive normingstudy of Spanish verbs produced a reliable list of cognates and homographs with English. Theonline research indicated that bilingual lexical access is guided not only by form and meaning,but also by how the frequency of a word???s meanings from both languages attach to a single form.These results mirror recent discoveries in ambiguity research in monolinguals (e.g., Rodd, Gaskell and Marslen-Wilson, 2002), the implications of which suggest an overriding mechanismof language processing???not just a theory of bilingual lexical processing.