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Abstract

Two experiments were carried out in order to investigate how the linguistic context (in the form of a sentence) facilitates the interpretation of unambiguous words. Experiment I established that if a sentential context as a whole is sufficient to evoke an inference that calls to mind a particular aspect of a word's meaning, the presence of a verb with appropriate selectional restrictions does not enhance the process. Experiment II showed that when no other cues are provided within a sentence, both verbs and adjectives are effective in enhancing a specific aspect of the meaning of a word. These findings were taken to support the hypothesis that in understanding a sentence, people instantiate particular aspects of the meanings of words in order to construct specific interpretations, and linguistic context guides this process of selection.

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Sentential Context and the Interpretation of Unambiguous Words

Abstract

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References