Suaad Alhelou and Markus Werning
Affiliation: Ruhr University Bochum
Category: Linguistics
Keywords: Polysemy, Co-predication, N400, Sustained-negativity, Coordinated sentences
Date: Wednesday 3rd of September
Time: 15:00
Location: Gen. Henryk Dąbrowski Hall (006)
View the full session: Polysemy & Communication
In the sentence "The book was heavy but still insightful.", the word "book" simultaneously refers to both a physical object and its intellectual content, yet listeners typically process this dual meaning effortlessly. This ability highlights the brain’s sophistication in handling subtle semantic nuances during interpretation. This phenomenon, known as co-predication where a single noun is used in a sentence with multiple predicates, each referring to a different sense of that noun. Essentially, it occurs when a polysemous word (a word with multiple related meanings) is assigned different interpretations simultaneously within the same sentence. It is worth noting that among the various types of polysemy one particular form—logical polysemy—captured our interest, as it also allows for co-predication (Pustejovsky, 1995). In this study, we focus on a specific type of nominal alternation within logical polysemy: the building-institution distinction. Consider the following example:
In example (1), which demonstrates co-predication in a coordinated structure, the noun "University" simultaneously refers to two distinct senses: renovated pertains to the concrete meaning (the physical building), while hired corresponds to the abstract meaning (the institution). Building on this, we aim to investigate the cognitive processing of co-predication with polysemous nouns that systematically alternate between a concrete (“building”) and an abstract (“institution”) sense by using ERP. Hence, three key hypotheses were proposed: (1) the Abstractness Effect hypothesis, which predicts that if the compositional integration of the second verb’s meaning in the sentence meaning requires an abstract interpretation of the noun (institution), we expect a fronto-central sustained-negativity in the ERP measured on the second verb; (2) the General Sense-Shifting Effect hypothesis, predicting an N400 effect when a sense shift was required, regardless of direction; and (3) the Direction of Shift Effect hypothesis, predicting that, an effect depending on whether the second verb induces a shift of the noun’s sense from concrete to abstract or from abstract to concrete. Measuring the ERP on the second verb, we expect, in case of the shift from concrete to abstract, a negativity effect located more in the posterior sites or close to it, and in the case of a shift from abstract to concrete, a negativity effect located more in frontal sites or close to it.
The design of the experiment was 2(Shift senses vs non-Shift senses) x2(Building vs Institution). We constructed 40 polysemous nouns of building-institution alternations. Out of these 40 pairs, in coordinated sentence form, we created quadruples; within each quadruple the first two sentences were non-shift conditions: (1) Building-Building (e.g., The station was rebuilt and (got) renewed) or (4) Institution- Institution (e.g., The station consulted experts and organized the operation), whereas the second two sentences were shift conditions: (2) Building - Institution (e.g., The station was rebuilt and organized the operation) or (3) Institution - Building (e.g., The station consulted experts and (got) renewed). We created a total of 350 stimuli (160 Coordinate sentence types as target sentences, and 190 fillers; 160 of which were grammatical sentences and of a similar but different sentence structure and 30 of which were ungrammatical).
The current results, as indicated by significant p-values from the t-test (Figure 1) and cluster-based permutation analysis (Table 1), suggest that there are differences in processing target predicates that invoke either concrete or abstract senses of the noun in both shift and non-shift conditions.
Firstly, in the comparison between non-shift condition 4 (I-I) and non-shift condition 1 (B-B), the results indicate a sustained negativity effect emerging approximately between 330–862 ms (see Table 1) at the fronto-central region (see Fig. 1a & 1c). Secondly, when comparing non-shift condition 4 (I-I) with shift condition 3 (I-B), a negativity trend is observed in the 350–500 ms time window (see Fig. 1a), while a significant effect appears in the 500–900 ms time window (see Fig. 1c and Table 1). These findings support the Abstractness effect hypothesis.
In order to validate the Direction of Shift Effect hypothesis, we first compared the shift conditions 2 (B-I) and respectively 3 (I-B) to their corresponding non-shift conditions 4 (I-I) and respectively 1 (B-B). We secondly compared the two shifting conditions, namely 2 (B-I) vs 3 (I-B), which go in opposite directions, namely from concrete to abstract or respectively from abstract to concrete. When comparing shift condition 2 (B-I) with non-shift condition 4 (I-I), a negativity effect is observed within the 331–495 ms time window (see Table 1 for the significant cluster in the cluster-permutation test and also the marginal effect in the t-test shown in Fig. 1b) localized at the posterior site (see Fig. 1b). Furthermore, in the comparison between shift condition 3 (I-B) and non-shift condition 1 (B-B), a significant negativity effect is observed within the 396–511 ms time window (see Table 1), localized at the fronto-central electrodes, as illustrated in Fig.1a. We examined the contrast between the two opposite shift directions, namely from concrete to abstract and from abstract to concrete. Firstly, in the comparison 3 (I-B) vs 2 (B-I), the t-test revealed a fronto-central negativity effect in the time window 350–500 ms (see Fig. 1a) and a significant central negativity effect in the time window 500-900 ms (See Fig. 1c and see also Table 1). Secondly, in the reverse comparison 2 (B-I) vs 3 (I-B), the t-test revealed a posterior negativity trend in the time window between 350-500 ms (see Fig. 1b).
Regarding the General Sense-Shifting Effect hypothesis, our results do not support its validity. The analysis presented in Fig. 1 indicates that there is no uniform ERP signal that is independent of shift direction (i.e., from concrete to abstract or vice versa).
Our findings reveal that the interpretation of polysemous nouns in co-predication within noun-verb constructions is influenced by multiple factors, including categorical features and the degree of semantic relatedness between senses. Additionally, our study highlights the role of the coordinate connector 'and', which appears to shape participants' expectations about the relationship between the first and second predicates, influencing how they interpret the connection between them.