Configuring the Phonological Organization of the Mental Lexicon Using Syntactic and Semantic Information

This paper tests the hypothesis that the lexicon structure responds to two opposed pressures. First, the pressure for isomorphic representations means that words that occur in similar contexts tend to sound similar. Second, the pressure for disambiguation needs a way to distinguish the similar-sounding words that occur in similar contexts. This corpus-based study finds that while some aspects of the phonological organization of the lexicon respond to the first pressure, others respond to the second. The results presented here support the idea of a complex lexicon able to find solutions and adapt its structure to disparate, often conflicting pressures