Investigating polysemous nouns and co-predication: EEG evidence on abstractness effects and sense shifts in coordinated sentences

Abstract

In an event-related potential (ERP) experiment in Modern Standard Arabic, we investigated the cognitive processing of co-predication with polysemous nouns that systematically alternate between a concrete (‘building’) and an abstract (‘institution’) sense. Coordinate sentences containing two predicates either of which triggered the concrete or the abstract sense were presented. We compared four conditions, two of which were mixed (Concrete-Abstract or Abstract-Concrete) and required a shift of sense in the interpretation of the noun. The other two conditions were compatible (Concrete-Concrete or Abstract-Abstract) and required no shift of sense. This is the first ERP study to examine polysemous nouns in cases of co-predication in noun–verb constructions. The findings revealed, firstly, a sustained negativity for abstract as opposed to concrete interpretations measured on the second verb. Secondly, we found a direction-of-shift effect resulting in a negativity located on more posterior sites when the shift was from concrete to abstract, and a more frontal negativity when the shift was from abstract to concrete. We hypothesize that this finding indicates a current flowing from frontal to posterior regions during a shift from a concrete to an abstract sense and a current in the opposite direction for the reverse direction of shift.