Abstract
In order to establish the relative dominance of the various alternative meanings of 20 homographs, 100 subjects were given printed lists of words and asked to write a definition for each. Definitions were categorized and the frequency of definitions corresponding to each alternative meaning noted. Substantial variation in meaning dominance imbalance across homographs was observed. A high degree of correspondence between the dominance levels determined in this manner and those obtained by alternative methods was noted.
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Warren, R. E., & Warren, N. T. Homophone meaning dominance and the dual encoding hypothesis. Paper presented at Psychonomic Society, St. Louis, 1976.
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The authors wish to thank N. T. Warren for her assistance in recruiting subjects.
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Warren, R.E., Bresnick, J.H. & Green, J.P. Definitional dominance distributions for 20 English homographs. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 10, 229–231 (1977). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329332
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329332