
Prepare an Outline for this part of the assignmentFor this assignment you will select a marginalized group (veterans, One of the major questions of interest has focused on the role of context in The problem of lexical ambiguity has been widely studied in the language comprehension Homophone like “bill” has separate grammatical nodes but shares a single sound node.įigure 1: A simplified model of the language processing system. Information flows up and down this network of nodes. During language comprehension and production, The middle, and meaning in the cloud bubbles). Nodes represent different aspects of the words (sounds at the bottom, grammatical properties in Third example), focusing primarily on the production processes.įigure 1 presents a simplified model of the mental lexicon. TheĮxperiments presented here were designed to explore the nature of lexical ambiguity (as in the Homophone “bill” which could refer to an itemized list of costs or to the mouth of a duck. Finally, in (c) the ambiguity lies in the use of the The binoculars or the spy had the binoculars. (b) there are two interpretations depending on the underlying grammatical structure: the cop had Thus “alert” can be parsed in a number of ways, two of which are “alert” and “a lert.” In In spoken speech, there are a few acoustic cues to signal the beginning and ending of In (a) the pun arises from the fundamental ambiguity that exists in the sounds of

The man was not surprised when he inspected the bill. The cop saw the spy with the binoculars.Ĭ. One of the major problems that language users must deal with is the resolution of ambiguities.ī. Where did Cinderella lose her slipper? At the dance or the soccer field: Homophones in language
