ABSTRACT
Although languages exhibit many types of ambiguity, most research on ambiguity resolution has focused on lexical and syntactic ambiguities. The theories that have dominated lexical and syntactic ambiguity resolution over the past 15 years suggest that lexical and syntactic ambiguities are resolved by very different mechanisms (e.g., Frazier, 1989; Frazier & Rayner, 1987). This chapter explores an alternative hypothesis—that lexical and syntactic ambiguity resolution operate via very similar mechanisms because much of what has been termed syntactic ambiguity resolution derives from lexical processes.
