Rôle de la fréquence relative des différentes acceptions d'homographes lors de l'accès au lexique
Pierre Marquer, Jeannine Le Nestour, Madeleine M. Leveille, Joëlle Welitz · L’Année psychologique · 1982
Summary : The role of the relative frequency of different meanings of homographs in lexical access. Processing of unambiguous sentences with either the more frequent or the less frequent meaning of critical ambiguous words (homographs) was examined in two experiments. In an ambiguity detection task (experiment I) sentences inducing the more frequent meaning of homographs produced more errors than sentences inducing the less frequent meaning, but no difference was found in the detection times. In a meaning-classification task (experiment II), sentences inducing the more frequent meaning led to fewer errors and shorter comprehension times than those inducing the less frequent meaning. These results suggest that the meanings of an ambiguous word tend to be retrieved according to their relative frequency. The role of relative frequency in lexical immediate post-access is discussed. Key-words : lexical access, lexical ambiguity, frequency of meanings.