Cognitive Science 41 (2017, Suppl.

2) 351–378
Copyright © 2016 Cognitive Science Society, Inc. All rights reserved.
ISSN: 0364-0213 print / 1551-6709 online
DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12341

Metonymy as Referential Dependency: Psycholinguistic

and Neurolinguistic Arguments for a Unified Linguistic
Treatment
nango,a Muye Zhang,a Emily Foster-Hanson,a,b Michiro
Maria M. Pi~
Negishi,c Cheryl Lacadie,c R. Todd Constablec
a
Department of Linguistics, Yale University
b
Department of Psychology, New York University
c
Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Yale University
Received 3 June 2015; received in revised form 9 November 2015; accepted 10 November 2015

Abstract
We examine metonymy at psycho- and neurolinguistic levels, seeking to adjudicate between
two possible processing implementations (one- vs. two-mechanism). We compare highly conven-
tionalized systematic metonymy (producer-for-product: “All freshmen read O’Connell”) to lesser-
conventionalized circumstantial metonymy (“[a waitress says to another:] ‘Table 2 asked for
more coffee.”’). Whereas these two metonymy types differ in terms of contextual demands, they
each reveal a similar dependency between the named and intended conceptual entities (e.g., Jack-
endoff, 1997; Nunberg, 1979, 1995). We reason that if each metonymy yields a distinct process-
ing time course and substantially non-overlapping preferential localization pattern, it would not
only support a two-mechanism view (one lexical, one pragmatic) but would suggest that conven-
tionalization acts as a linguistic categorizer. By contrast, a similar behavior in time course and
localization would support a one-mechanism view and the inference that conventionalization acts
instead as a modulator of contextual felicitousness, and that differences in interpretation intro-
duced by conventionalization are of degree, not of kind. Results from three paradigms: self-paced
reading (SPR), event-related potentials (ERP), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI),
reveal the following: no main effect by condition (metonymy vs. matched literal control) for either
metonymy type immediately after the metonymy trigger, and a main effect for only the Circum-
stantial metonymy one word post-trigger (SPR); a N400 effect across metonymy types and a late
positivity for Circumstantial metonymy (ERP); and a highly overlapping activation connecting the
left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (fMRI). Altogether,
the pattern observed does not reach the threshold required to justify a two-mechanism system.
Instead, the pattern is more naturally (and conservatively) understood as resulting from the imple-
mentation of a generalized referential dependency mechanism, modulated by degree of context

Correspondence should be sent to Maria Mercedes Pi~nango, Department of Linguistics, Yale University,
PO Box 208366, New Haven, CT 06520. E-mail: maria.pinango@yale.edu
352 M. M. Pi~
nango et al. / Cognitive Science 41 (2017)

dependence/conventionalization, thus supporting architectures of language whereby “lexical” and

“pragmatic” meaning relations are encoded along a cline of contextual underspecification.

Keywords: Reference transfer; Metonymy; Figurative language; Self-paced reading; Event-related

potentials; fMRI; Contextual effects; Producer-for-product metonymy

1. Introduction

We explore the structure of the interface between the linguistic system and the larger,
richer (and presumably older) conceptual system from a psycholinguistic and neurolin-
guistic perspective. To this end, we examine two cases of referential dependency which
we label systematic and circumstantial metonymy. An example of systematic (in the form
of producer-for-product) metonymy is the interpretation of “Jones” in (1) as, say, a paint-
ing produced by a person by that name. An example of circumstantial metonymy (refer-
ence transfer) is the interpretation of “Room 23” in (2) as the person occupying Room
23, say, in a hotel.
(1) “Bill was fortunate to buy a Jones last year at a very good price.”
(2) “Room 23 called for more ice.”
The labels “systematic” and “circumstantial” are motivated by the focus of our
question. Traditionally, linguistic theory has implicitly suggested categorically distinct
treatments for each of these metonymies through the choice of the terminology: Whereas
systematic metonymy (e.g., producer-or-product, place-for-event, place-for-inhabitant) has
been given labels like regular polysemy or lexical metonymy (e.g., Apresjan, 1974;
Eckardt, 1999), circumstantial metonymy has been given labels like reference or meaning
transfer (e.g., Jackendoff, 1997; Nunberg, 1979). Although ultimately nothing crucial
hinges on the label, it is the case that many of those labels tend to be theory-laden,
encoding an analytical bias: Metonymies like producer-for-product are expected to be
lexically determined (e.g., Frisson & Pickering, 1999, 2007), whereas “reference trans-
fer” relations are expected not to be lexically encoded, but implemented instead as prag-
matic processes (e.g., Egg, 2004; Nunberg, 1995; Schumacher, 2011). Yet, this is
precisely the question we seek to answer here: The extent to which assuming such a lexi-
cal versus pragmatic distinction among metonymies is warranted, at least as reflected by
their processing and neurological behavior. This answer has widespread implications. If
the lexical versus pragmatic distinction were supported, it would suggest a structural fea-
ture of the architecture of the language system that categorically distinguishes the lexical
and the pragmatic subsystems, all the way to their neurological bases. If it were not sup-
ported, it would suggest that the mechanisms of real-time meaning composition and con-
ventionalization are independent of each other, making metonymy a general (unified)
mechanism for establishing reference dependence through linguistic means.
In sum, our present approach is guided by the (theory-neutral) observation that whereas
in the systematic cases, the necessary functional correspondence appears largely
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nango et al. / Cognitive Science 41 (2017) 353

conventionalized and therefore fully predictable, in the circumstantial cases, local

context seems to play a bigger role in licensing the metonymy, evidencing the lesser
associated degree of conventionalization and predictability. Their respective psycho- and
neurolinguistic behaviors would therefore indicate whether conventionalization serves as
an organizing factor for the linguistic architecture or whether it mainly serves as a
processing variable that indicates when greater contextual richness is required as
comprehension progresses. In what follows, we describe each of the metonymies and
discuss previous psycholinguistic research which serves to further frame our question.

1.1. Licensing metonymy

The two metonymy cases in question illustrate the basic tension in the proper
characterization of the phenomenon. On the one hand, metonymy appears as a general
type of semantic relation that allows a given term to be used to refer not to its original
denotation, but to another denotation which is conversationally informative and one with
which it holds some kind of functional correspondence (e.g., Jackendoff, 1997; Lakoff,
1987; Nunberg, 1979 1995; Pustejovsky, 1995). In example (1), conversational infor-
mativity (or “noteworthiness” in Nunberg, 1995, terms) is revealed by the fact that for
the proper name “Jones” to license the correspondence to a painting, not only should the
painting be of her production, but Jones the person must be a painter by profession (and
preferably of some reputation), not just someone who paints occasionally as a recreational
hobby. In the case of circumstantial metonymy, example (2), conversational informativity
refers to the fact that the metonymy is expressed in the context of a hotel (which is
normally organized in terms of numbered rooms), and it is spoken by the maids (expected
to be) regularly in charge of tending that room. This default relation between speaker-
addressee and context is the factor that in turn allows the occupant to be referentially
linked to her room number. So, just like in the systematic metonymy case, circumstantial
metonymy is licensed on the basis of a larger yet constrained set of assumptions
regarding the entities involved.1
On the other hand, systematic and circumstantial metonymy clearly differ. Whereas in
systematic metonymy the specific correspondences “outlive,” as it were, their sentential
licensing contexts, that is not normally the case for circumstantial metonymy. The paint-
ing once referred to as “a Jones” can be referred to in that way outside of the context in
which it was originally uttered. By contrast, if the maid from the hotel were to see the
occupant of Room 23 outside of the context of the hotel, it is unlikely that she will refer
to that person as “Room 23.” This is what we refer to as a difference in conventionaliza-
tion: the extent to which the referential dependency can be permanently associated with a
given lexical meaning. The more permanent the association the more conventionalized
the metonymy is said to be. Such a difference in behavior suggests that in systematic
metonymy, the referential dependency appears to be established at the level of the lexical
expression itself (the proper name meaning of ‘Jones’ will be associated with the concept
of the painting). By contrast, in the circumstantial metonymy case, the dependency is
established in a larger environment, at the level of the situation the lexical expression is
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nango et al. / Cognitive Science 41 (2017)

connected to. This normally happens not in a predetermined manner, but in real time, that
is, as the specific context for the utterance is recognized. Accordingly, composing a
circumstantial metonymy need not leave a memory trace of the referential relation built
(e.g., the functional correspondence between room number and guest is not necessarily
committed to memory to be used referentially outside of the context in which it was ori-
ginally created.).2

1.2. Metonymy through real-time comprehension

The description provided above leads to two competing logical possibilities regarding
the fundamental factors that guide metonymy composition: In one view, which we term
here the two-mechanism view, conventionalization is a fundamental property of the
linguistic architecture. If it is present (as in systematic metonymy), it leads to “lexical
encoding”: the permanent storage of the new entity as a possible referent for the proper
name. If it is absent (as in circumstantial metonymy), it allows the metonymy to be
generated “on the fly,” presumably through a pragmatically based inference process. This
view thus leads to an understanding of metonymy as two distinct mechanisms determined
by a distinction in conventionalization, where presence of conventionalization determines
whether or not a dependency relation will be lexically encoded. In this way conventional-
ization functions as an organizing principle of the architecture of language (i.e.,
conventionalization as a meaning categorizer: lexical vs. pragmatic).
In the competing approach, the one-mechanism view, conventionalization instead
“modulates” the establishment of the dependency: its presence constrains the contextual
information that the parser must consider in order to establish the intended “new”
reference (e.g., “Jones”’ as a painting emerges from the parser being constrained to the
individual as a producer, “Room 23” as a person, emerges from the parser being
constrained to the situation involving that room and its occupant). In this view, lexical
storage occurs not as a function of kind of dependency but as a function of frequency of
use (the greater the use of the dependency the more likely it will be lexically stored).
Both metonymies result from the establishment of the same reference dependency
mechanism, carried out in conceptual representation, regardless of conventionalization
constraints. This view thus leads to an understanding of metonymy as a unified
mechanism modulated by a degree of conventionalization (i.e., conventionalization as the
inducer of a contextual cline).
Here we seek to adjudicate between these two possibilities by examining the two
metonymies through real-time comprehension, both behaviorally and through neuroimag-
ing (fMRI). These two perspectives allow us to compare the implementation of the two
metonymies both as they unfold in real time and in connection to the cortical areas that
they recruit for such an implementation.3

1.2.1. Previous work on metonymy

Although no previous work has compared the processing of the two metonymies within
the same study, the existing work has revealed key properties of systematic (Frisson &
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Pickering, 1999, 2007; Weiland, Bambini, & Schumacher, 2014) and circumstantial
(Schumacher, 2011, 2013a, b) metonymy which already suggest their comparability. For
systematic metonymy, previous research has shown that the so-called “non-literal” sense
of such utterances is highly accessible, provided that it has met conversational informativ-
ity constraints. Frisson and Pickering (1999) examined the interpretation of “familiar”
versus “literal” senses of terms such as “Vietnam” (e.g., “protested during Vietnam” vs.
“hitchhiked around Vietnam,” respectively). They report no additional processing cost
associated with the familiar metonymical sense. Later, Frisson and Pickering (2007) revis-
ited the processing of metonymy by investigating this time the comprehension of novel
metonymies as a function of context. Using eye-tracking, they compared familiar versus
novel metonymic senses, in supporting and non-supporting contexts. The supporting con-
text presented an individual, describing him or her as a “producer” of some kind (e.g., an
author), thereby introducing a salient relationship between the two entities (e.g., a person
and a text). The nonsupporting context introduced instead the individual and then pro-
vided information about him or her that was unrelated to the licensing relationship. Their
results show that processing novel metonymies was costlier than processing familiar
metonymies, but only in a non-supporting context, that is, when conversational informa-
tivity was weakened. Cost disappeared when context supported the metonymy—in our
terms, when conversational informativity was high. Frisson and Pickering interpret their
findings as evidence that speakers are able to process “novel senses of a word” using
context as needed in a “rule-driven fashion” (Frisson & Pickering, 2007, p. 597).
In more recent ERP work, Schumacher (2011) initially reports a late positivity peaking
at 500–800 ms for novel circumstantial metonymy, which is interpreted as the index of
the completion of the meaning transfer (referential dependency, in our terms), a process
referred to as “pragmatic adjustment”; no N400 effect, however, is reported. But this
divergence proves to be an incomplete finding. Subsequently, Schumacher (2013a) ulti-
mately shows that an N400 does emerge when the metonymy is presented with a non-
biasing context. Soon after in Schumacher (2013b), this effect is proposed to underpin
the requirement of “reconceptualization” which is resolved by pragmatic adjustment.
Finally, Weiland et al. (2014) report converging electrophysiological correlates of
novel producer-for-product (systematic) metonymy. In line with previous results, they
report an N400 index (and crucially no late positivity) which they interpret as an indica-
tor of the initial stage, or “trigger” in their terms, of the metonymy process. The absence
of late positivity for them is in turn taken as an indication that this kind of metonymy
does not undergo pragmatic adjustment, in contrast to the reconceptualization involved in
circumstantial metonymy discussed in Schumacher (2013b).
Turning to the neuroimaging evidence, to our knowledge, no previous systematic study
of the comparative neurological correlates of these two metonymic types in supported
contexts has ever been reported. This said, Rapp et al. (2011) do report on decontextual-
ized metonymy comprehension, which we take as an initial guide to our localization pre-
dictions. Rapp et al. (2011) present metonymies such as “Africa is hungry,” in which a
causal link (supplied by historical information expected to be known by the comprehen-
der) must be created to connect the geographic designation of Africa with its inhabitants.
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For these metonymies, they report left hemisphere activation, most notably in the inferior
frontal cortex in addition to its right hemisphere counterpart.
An additional guide for hypothesizing potential regions of interest for the two
metonymies is based on parallel investigations of other kinds of so-called figurative
language such as metaphor. In this respect, the evidence does not yet point to an
unambiguous cortical region. In a meta-analysis involving 23 studies, Ferstl et al. (2008)
show that while some subtypes of text comprehension involved the left hemisphere, at
least metaphor comprehension (and pragmatic processing in general in their view) seem
to preferentially recruit the workings of the right hemisphere. By contrast, other research
on idiom and metaphor comprehension link it to the workings of the left hemisphere
(Chiappe & Chiappe, 2007; Yang, Edens, Simpson, & Krawczyk, 2009; Yang, Fuller,
Khodaparast, & Krawczyk, 2010).
Altogether, previous research has shown the following: (a) processing cost for novel
systematic metonymy exists, but it is more clearly observable when it is contextually
unsupported, (b) whereas systematic and circumstantial metonymy have been shown
to exhibit an N400, only circumstantial metonymy has revealed a biphasic pattern (N400-
late positivity), and (c) neuroimaging research on (unsupported) metonymic and non-
metonymic figurative language points to both the right and left hemispheres as possible
loci for neurological correlates of metonymy.
Here, we build on these previous results to formulate the predictions for each view,
which we present directly below.

1.2.2. The current studies: Predictions by each of the two models

The two-mechanism view predicts that systematic metonymy, being highly convention-
alized and therefore predictable, will be implemented at minimal cost as compared to the
non-metonymic counterpart, whereas circumstantial metonymy, being less-conventiona-
lized and therefore more reliant on the details of local contextual factors, will be costlier
to implement (see de Almeida & Dwivedi, 2008; Katsika, Braze, Deo, & Pi~nango, 2012
for similar arguments for differences in cost as a function of contextual interactions in
complement coercion). Neurologically, this view predicts that each of these metonymy
types will show substantially non-overlapping patterns of activation, each pattern being
determined by the respective mode of implementation (“lexical” vs. “pragmatic”).
The one-mechanism view, by contrast, implies that once both metonymies meet con-
versational informativity (contextual support), any differences between them should be
interpretable as differences in degree, not category. So, this suggests that both metony-
mies should show very similar time-course patterns, and substantially overlapping cortical
recruitment.
We test the predictions of the two hypotheses by contrasting the time courses of these
two types of metonymy with their respective “literal” controls via self-paced reading
(SPR, Study 1) in order to assess presence of compositional cost and via event-related
potentials (ERP, Study 2) in order to determine the latency of such cost, capitalizing on
the millisecond precision of this technique. We close the series with Study 3 (fMRI),
 M. M. Pi~
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which enables us to uncover the degree of convergence of cortical recruitment between

the two metonymies. We present each of the studies in turn.

2. Study 1: Self-paced reading

2.1. Methods

2.1.1. Participants
Thirty-five native speakers of American English recruited from the Yale University
student body (19 female, age range 18–30 years, Mage 21 years) participated in the study.
All participants were right-handed and by self-report had no history of neurological dis-
ease or brain injury, and they had normal or corrected-to-normal vision. All participants
gave written informed consent in accordance with the guidelines set by the Yale Univer-
sity Human Subjects Committee and were compensated for their participation.

2.1.2. Materials
A script with a total of 230 experimental items was constructed containing 50
Systematic metonymy experimental items with their 50 matched literal counterparts, 50
Circumstantial metonymy items with their 50 matched literal counterparts, and 30
additional nonsensical counterparts. Items within each pair were matched for number of
words (22 or fewer), valence, approximate number of characters, whether the metonymy
or control was preceded by a preposition or a verb, and constituent structure. Addition-
ally, for each metonymic-literal matched sentence pair, words were distributed equally
across windows such that the number of windows presented was always the same per
matched pair.4
Each experimental item had two parts: a context, and the metonymy or matched literal
control. Whereas in the Systematic metonymy comparison the context and
metonymy/control item were distributed in two sentences, for the Circumstantial meto-
nymy comparison, the context portion of the item introduced a quote which identified the
location and the interlocutors in the present tense, which was then followed by a colon.
The metonymy or literal control was then presented in quotation marks.
Our main goal throughout the development of the materials was to use constructions
that unambiguously led to the metonymic interpretation. The key controlling element of
the design is that for each metonymic sentence, regardless of metonymic type, there was
a non-metonymic counterpart which does not differ in terms of phrase structure configu-
ration. In this manner, a variety of syntactic structures could be used within each condi-
tion without introducing a syntactic confound. This would further demonstrate that the
effect arising from the group of sentences as a whole (each condition) is one arising from
the composition of the metonymy, rather than a by-product of the syntax.
For the Systematic metonymy comparison, we used as our basis the 48 producer-
for-product metonymy items from the Context-Supported and Context-Literal Novel
Metonymy conditions from Frisson and Pickering (2007). All items were edited from
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nango et al. / Cognitive Science 41 (2017)

their original versions to contain 22 words or fewer, and they were matched for number
of words within each pair. As our subject pool consisted of American university students,
the materials were edited to be acceptable to native speakers of American English. All
names were modified to be at least eight characters long and were required to be easily
pronounceable by American English speakers. Following the style of these items and the
same stipulations, 30 metonymy-literal pairs were created for the Circumstantial
metonymy condition. Thirty nonsensical items were created by combining the first half of
a Circumstantial metonymy item with the second half (the quote) of a different meto-
nymy item. This “nonsense” condition was introduced in order to provide a “floor” level
with which to compare the metonymic conditions and was incompatible with a valid
interpretation of the metonymy or literal control presented in the quote.
These 48 Systematic metonymy pairs (metonymy vs. literal), 30 Circumstantial
metonymy items, and 30 nonsensical items were normed in separate questionnaires. On
the basis of the norming results,5 the 25 highest-rated sentence pairs of each metonymy
type were minimally modified and served as models to create a total of 50 experimental
items per metonymy type, per condition, for a total of 200 metonymy items and 30
nonsensical items.
Table 1 provides examples of matched pairs for metonymy and literal control counter-
parts in each metonymy type (Systematic, Circumstantial) and an example Nonsensical
item.

2.1.3. Design
A unique self-paced reading script was created for each subject in the study; each
subject thus saw all of the experimental sentences in a unique order. Each script was
counterbalanced such that each metonymic-literal pair was split between the two halves

Table 1
Experimental stimuli
Condition Type Example C
Sys. Met. Nowadays, most college students read the poems Martin Wickstrom wrote Wickstrom
about England. They usually get to read Wickstrom when they are
freshmen.
Lit. Nowadays, most college students learn about Martin Wickstrom and his
unusual life. They sometimes get to meet Wickstrom when he gives
lectures.
Circ. Met. In a diner, one waitress tells another: “The ham sandwich in the corner needs
needs another cup of coffee.”
Lit. In a diner, one waitress tells another: “The tall woman in the corner needs
another cup of coffee.”
Nonsensical In a crowded emergency room, one nurse says to another: “The clam
chowder at Table 3 ordered another glass of wine.”
Notes. Sys., Systematic; Circ., Circumstantial; Met., Metonymy; Lit., Literal; C, Critical Word (see Section 1
for discussion of C). Bold shows minimal differences between metonymic and literal conditions.
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of each script and pseudo-randomized such that no two items of the same experimental
set, of the same condition, or of the same base (i.e., minimally altered versions of the
same sentence type) appeared consecutively.
Comprehension questions followed approximately 75% of the items and were spaced
randomly throughout the entire script. After the end of each sentence, the questions were
presented in their entirety on the screen and remained onscreen until the subject indicated
a response. In order to prevent any systematic bias, half the questions had an expected
answer of “yes” and half had an expected answer of “no”; in addition, half the questions
queried the first half of the item (i.e., the context), and the other half of the questions
queried the second half of the item.
For the items without a question, a screen appeared with the text “Please press the
‘yes’ key” or “Please press the ‘no’ key.” The items not followed by a question were also
distributed randomly throughout the experiment.

2.1.4. Procedure
Stimuli were presented following a standard noncumulative moving-window self-paced
reading paradigm, created and presented using the E-Prime software suite (Psychology
Software Tools, 2012). For each sentence, a mask composed of a series of dashes repre-
senting the total length of the sentence was presented on the screen to give participants a
rough sense of the length of the sentence, without any indication of its content. Partici-
pants then proceeded through the sentence word-by-word by pressing the spacebar on the
keyboard. Every spacebar press displayed the next word in the sentence and replaced the
previous word with the mask. All text was displayed with black text on a white
background.
Participants were instructed to read through the sentence at as natural a pace as possi-
ble while maintaining full comprehension of the sentence. They were also instructed that
comprehension questions following the sentences would ensure their attention and com-
prehension of the items.
The study began with a practice session of three example sentences that matched the
experimental items. The practice session ensured the participants understood and were
familiar with the paradigm prior to beginning the study. Participants were required to
answer all the practice questions correctly before moving on to the experiment; if any
questions were answered incorrectly, the practice session was given again. No subject
completed the practice session more than twice.

2.1.5. Data analysis

The data from three subjects were excluded from subsequent analyses due to technical
failure. Thus, the analyses reported are from the data of the remaining 32 subjects.
Because the two types of metonymy comparisons differed with respect to their experi-
mental stimuli, they are analyzed separately; that is, the Systematic metonymy
comparison (systematic metonymy and its matched literal control) is analyzed alone, and
separately from the Circumstantial metonymy comparison (circumstantial metonymy and
its matched literal control) which are also analyzed alone. However, since the structure of
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the experiment is the same for both types of metonymy comparisons, the same statistical
analyses are applied to each of the comparisons.
Reading times were compared between metonymy and matched literal control
(separately for the two types of metonymy comparisons, Systematic and Circumstantial)
for the critical word and surrounding words in each matched pair. For both metonymy
comparisons, this was measured at five locations (windows): the critical word, C, as the
main segment of interest, and the two words before and after it: C
2, C
1, C,
C + 1, C + 2. The critical word for the Systematic metonymy comparison was the proper
name in the sentence following the context. The critical word for the Circumstantial
metonymy comparison was the point in the sentence at which a literal interpretation was
no longer valid. Examples of the words measured at each location for each type are
provided in Table 2.

2.2. Results

2.2.1. Behavioral results

Subjects’ correct answers to the comprehension questions were recorded individually.
Overall, subjects answered the majority of questions correctly, with an average score of
95%. Responses showed a significant effect of sensicality (p < .01). Within sensical com-
parisons (i.e., all metonymy items and literal controls), a significant effect of condition
was also observed (p < .01). Table 3 shows average correct responses by condition.

2.2.2. Reading time results

Sentence-level reading times were analyzed using linear mixed effects models: Sepa-
rate models were constructed for the two metonymy types because the materials used for
two types were different. Using R (R Core Team, 2014) and lme4 (Bates, Maechler,
Bolker, & Walker, 2014), a linear mixed effects model was constructed with a fixed
effect of condition (metonymy vs. literal) and as random effects, intercepts for subjects
and items in addition to by-subject random slopes for the effect of condition. No devia-
tions from homoskedasticity or normality were observed through visual inspection of the

Table 2
Segments of interest
Comparison Condition C
2 C
1 C C+1 C+2
Systematic Metonymy to read Wickstrom when they
Literal to meet Wickstrom when he
Circumstantial Metonymy the corner needs another cup
Literal the corner needs another cup
Notes. Critical word (C) is the main segment of interest; reading times were measured and compared for C
and the two words before and after it. For the Circumstantial metonymy comparison, the full subject noun
phrases are “the ham sandwich in the corner” and “the tall woman in the corner” for the metonymy and
literal conditions, respectively.
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residual plots. Statistical significance (p-value) was obtained by a likelihood ratio test of
the full model with the effect in question (condition) against the null model without the
effect in question.
The analysis for the Systematic metonymy comparison revealed no significant effect of
condition on sentence-level reading time (v2 ð1Þ ¼ 0:595, df = 1, p = .441). The parallel
analysis for the Circumstantial metonymy comparison also revealed no significant effect
of condition on sentence-level reading time (v2 ð1Þ ¼ 0:1781, df = 1, p = .673).
A third model was constructed to determine the effect of sensicality. This linear mixed
effects model was constructed with a fixed effect of sensicality (nonsensical vs. all other
experimental conditions) and as random effects, intercepts for subjects and items in addi-
tion to by-subject random slopes for the effect of sensicality. No deviations from
homoskedasticity or normality were observed through visual inspection of the residual
plots. Statistical significance (p-value) was obtained by a likelihood ratio test of the full
model with the effect in question (sensicality) against the null model without the effect in
question.
This analysis revealed a significant effect of sensicality (v2 ð1Þ ¼ 6:4056, df = 1,
p = .01138): Nonsensical sentence reading times were longer than sensical sentences. All
three analyses are summarized in Table 4.
The word-by-word analyses were analyzed using repeated-measures ANOVAs: Separate
ANOVAs were performed for the Systematic metonymy and Circumstantial metonymy
comparisons, as the two comparisons’ experimental stimuli differed, and each of the
windows was analyzed separately. Each ANOVA included the fixed effect Condition (2

Table 3
Mean comprehension question accuracy by condition
Comparison Condition Accuracy (%)
Sys. Met. 97.1
Lit. 93.7
Nonsensical 96.3
Circ. Met. 95.8
Lit. 91.6
Nonsensical 96.3

Table 4
Mean sentence-level reading times by condition
Model/Comparison Condition Reading Time (SD) Result
1. Systematic Metonymy 7,051 ms (2,161) v (1) = 0.5950, df = 1, p = .441
2

Literal 7,071 ms (2,234)

2. Circumstantial Metonymy 7,183 ms (2,255) v2 (1) = 0.1781, df = 1, p = .673
Literal 7,177 ms (2,159)
3. Sensicality Sensical 7,120 ms (2,203) v2 (1) = 6.406, df = 1, p = .0114*
Nonsensical 7,334 ms (2,218)
362 M. M. Pi~
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levels: metonymy vs. matched literal control) and the random factor Subjects. By-item
analyses revealed no significant effect systematically attributable to variation across
items.
Comparisons between the Systematic metonymy and literal conditions did not reveal a
significant effect of condition at any window (Fs < 2.5).
By contrast, comparisons between the Circumstantial metonymy and literal conditions
revealed a significant effect of condition at the C + 1 window (the word following the
critical word) (F(1, 31) = 4.49, p = .0422). All other windows showed no significant
effect of condition (Fs < 2.1).
The average reading times per condition for metonymic items versus matched literal
controls are shown word-by-word in Fig. 1; Fig. 1a shows the Systematic metonymic
comparison, while Fig. 1b shows the Circumstantial metonymic comparison.

2.3. Discussion

These results replicate previous findings that novel systematic metonymy, when
supported by context, does not elicit significantly greater processing cost than literal
counterparts (Frisson & Pickering, 2007). Crucially, however, our results also show that
even though circumstantial metonymy also does not elicit extra reading cost at the critical
word, it does so soon after, even when context is provided. The results are therefore sup-
portive of both hypotheses: They show that circumstantial, like systematic metonymy,
does not exhibit visible processing cost when supported by context (consistent with the
one-mechanism hypothesis), but they also show that over time, the processing of the cir-
cumstantial metonymy does require a greater effort, suggesting in turn that the two may
be not be compositionally unified and, instead, may be implemented as a function of dis-
tinct domains, consistent with the two-mechanism hypothesis.
This said, it is still the case that SPR may not be sensitive enough to reflect more
nuanced, compositional differences that, in turn, could further distinguish or unify the
processing of the two metonymies. We consider three possible interpretations from the
results presented above: the two metonymies are either categorically different (evidenced
by the presence of later-emerging cost in the Circumstantial metonymy comparison vs.
no cost in the Systematic metonymy comparison), they are different by degree (both have
no cost at the critical word, but Circumstantial metonymy elicits later-emerging cost
consistent with the building of greater conversational informativity), or the syntactic
difference of the critical word between the two metonymy comparisons6 thereby
introduces a compositional expectation that for some reason generates greater, delayed,
computational work.
It could be the case, however, that when examined at a more fine-grained level,
differences or similarities not only in quality but in latency of effect could emerge that
would consequently warrant a more definitive interpretation of and arbitrate between the
three possibilities emerging from the SPR-based observations. Seeking this increased
sensitivity, we turn to event-related potentials.
 M. M. Pi~
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(a)

Fig. 1. Mean reading times for segments of interest. (a) Systematic metonymy comparison. (b) Circumstan-
tial metonymy comparison. Red solid lines represent metonymy in both comparisons, while blue dotted lines
represent the matched literal controls. (a) No significant differences were observed between the metonymic
and literal conditions at any window (Fs < 2.5). (b) Significant differences were observed between the meto-
nymic and literal control conditions at the C + 1 (F(1, 31) = 4.49, p = .0422) window only. No significant
differences were observed in any other windows (Fs < 2.1).

3. Study 2: Event-related potentials

3.1. Methods

3.1.1. Participants
Here, 24 undergraduate and graduate students from Yale University (12 female, age
range 18–27 years, Mage 21 years) participated in the study. They were native speakers of
English, right-handed, had no history of neurological disease or brain injury, and had
normal or corrected-to-normal vision. All participants gave written informed consent in
accordance with the guidelines set by the Yale University Human Subjects Committee
and were compensated for their participation.
364 M. M. Pi~
nango et al. / Cognitive Science 41 (2017)

3.1.2. Materials
The same set of sentences used in Study 1 were used for Study 2, minus the nonsensi-
cal condition. Both contrasts were time-locked at the same critical word (C) as the main
segment of interest. As in the Study 1 (see Table 1), for the Systematic metonymy com-
parison, C was the proper name in the sentence following the context; for the Circum-
stantial metonymy comparison, C represented the point in the sentence where a literal
interpretation became invalid. Experimental items were followed by the same comprehen-
sion questions to those used in Study

3.1.3. Design
The 200 sentences were split into 10 groups. The order of experimental items was
pseudo-randomized, such that no two items of the same matched pair or of the same base
(i.e., minimally altered versions of the same item) would appear consecutively. Each sub-
ject was presented the 10 groups of sentences in a unique order. Subjects indicated their
responses to comprehension questions (which followed 75% of the sentences) by pressing
two adjacent keys marked “Y” and “N” with their left hand on a keyboard.

3.1.4. Procedure
Subjects were seated in a darkened room in front of a computer. Sentences were
presented one word at a time in the center of the computer screen in white font on a
black background; each word was presented for 500 ms with no ISI. At the end of
sentences that had been assigned comprehension questions, subjects had 4,000 ms to
answer the question, after which the next sentence would be presented, regardless if an
answer had been given or not. A fixation cross was displayed for 1 s between the end
of the comprehension question and the beginning of the following sentence. Partici-
pants were instructed to read and understand each sentence and were informed that
they would be asked comprehension questions at the end of most sentences. Subjects
were asked not to blink or move during sentence presentation.
Electrophysiological measures were recorded using Neuroscan Synamps2 amplifiers
and a 64-channel Quik-Cap (sintered Ag/AgCl electrodes, 5% system configuration;
Oostenveld & Praamstra, 2001) with an online Cz reference, at a 1,000 Hz sampling rate
and recording bandwidth of 0–200 Hz. Horizontal and vertical electrooculograms were
recorded with electrodes above and below the left eye and on both outer canthi to control
for eye-movement artifacts. Impedances were kept below 5 kΩ for each electrode.

3.1.5. Data analysis

The EEG waveforms were first visually inspected for artifact rejection, and then using
EEGLAB (Delorme & Makeig, 2004), were filtered (1–80 Hz bandpass with a notch filter
at 60 Hz), re-referenced offline to linked mastoids, epoched around the critical words
(200 ms pre- to 999 ms post-stimulus), baseline corrected using the pre-stimulus interval,
and averaged within each condition for each subject. Further statistical analyses were
performed in R (R Core Team, 2014).
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Repeated-measures ANOVAs were performed for each of the two metonymy compar-
isons (as they had different experimental stimuli) using the fixed effects Condition (2
levels: metonymy vs. matched literal control) and Location (9 levels: left anterior (AF3,
F7, F5, F3), middle anterior (FP1, FPz, Fp2, F1, Fz, F2), right anterior (AF4, F4, F6,
F8), left central (FT7, FC5, FC3, T7, C5, C3, TP7, CP5, CP3), middle central (FC1,
FCz, FC2, C1, Cz, C2, CP1, CPz, CP2), right central (FC4, FC6, FC8, C4, C6, C8, CP4,
CP6, TP8), left posterior (P7, P5, P3, PO7, PO5), middle posterior (P1, Pz, P2, PO3,
POz, PO4, O1, Oz, O2, CB1, CB2), right posterior (P4, P6, P8, PO6, PO8), and the
random effect subjects. Mean amplitudes were calculated over windows based on
commonly used windows in the literature (e.g., 300–500 ms post-onset for N400;
600–850/550–750/900–1,100 ms post-onset for late positivities; Kutas & Federmeier,
2011; Schumacher, 2011, 2013a, b) and adjusted based on visual inspection (Schu-
macher, 2013b).

3.2. Results

The behavioral data from five subjects were excluded due to technical failure;
behavioral data from a total of 19 subjects are thus included in the analysis.
The electrophysiological data from two subjects were excluded due to technical failure;
electrophysiological data from a total of 22 subjects are thus included in the analysis.

3.2.1. Behavioral results

The subjects’ overall accuracy in answering the comprehension questions (93.5%) was
comparable to that from Study 1 (95%), and the accuracies between conditions for both
comparisons were not significantly different. Table 5 shows percentage of correct
responses.

3.2.2. Electrophysiological results

Fig. 2 shows all nine regions’ ERP traces for the Systematic metonymy comparison
and the Circumstantial metonymy comparison, respectively, both with the red solid
trace as the metonymic condition and the blue dashed trace as literal control. The cen-
tral anterior region for both comparisons is highlighted to show the traces in more
detail.

Table 5
Mean comprehension question accuracy by condition
Comparison Condition Accuracy (%)
Sys. Met. 96.6
Lit. 94.3
Circ. Met. 92.2
Lit. 91.6
366 M. M. Pi~
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First, in the 0–300 ms window both metonymies show a positive deflection which was
marginally significant for the Systematic metonymy comparison (F(1, 21) = 3.00,
p = .084) and significant for the Circumstantial comparison (F(1, 21) = 4.89, p = .028).
Second, both the Systematic metonymy comparison and the Circumstantial metonymy
comparison show negative deflections for the metonymic conditions as compared to their

(a)

(b)

Fig. 2. Grand average ERPs time-locked to main segment of interest. (a) Systematic metonymy comparison.
(b) Circumstantial metonymy comparison. In both comparisons, Metonymy is represented by the red solid
line, while the Matched Literal Control is represented by the blue dashed line. ERP traces begin at the onset
of the critical word. The diagram on the left represents the top-down view of the scalp (top = anterior scalp
areas, down = posterior scalp areas). The arrows point to the areas where the significant main effects were
found. The y-axis is plotted with negative values increasing upward.
 M. M. Pi~
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respective literal controls in the 400–500 ms window post-onset of the critical word. The
statistical analyses supported these findings: In both metonymy comparisons we observed
a main effect of condition in the 400–500 ms post-onset window of the critical word
(Systematic metonymy comparison: F(1, 21) = 6.50, p = .012; Circumstantial metonymy
comparison: F(1, 21) = 9.39, p = .003) as well as a main effect of location (Systematic:
F(8, 168) = 4.17, p < 0.001; Circumstantial: F(8, 168) = 6.27, p < 0.001), but no
significant interaction between the two (Systematic: F(8, 189) = 0.118, p = .999;
Circumstantial: F(8, 189) = 0.337, p = .951). In the Circumstantial comparison, the same
pattern remains significant in the larger window of 300–500 ms post-onset (F(1,
21) = 8.24, p = .004).
Third, in the Circumstantial metonymy comparison, an additional positive shift of the
metonymic condition versus the literal control reaches significance in only the
800–900 ms post-onset window; this was supported by a parallel repeated-measures
ANOVA (as above) (F(1, 21) = 9.45, p = .002). No such positive deflection of the metony-
mic trace over the literal control trace was observed in any portion of the 550–1,000 ms
post-onset window for the Systematic metonymy comparison.

3.3. Discussion

The ERP data show that Systematic metonymy and Circumstantial metonymy share an
initial early positivity and N400 component, while the late positivity effect is observed
only in the Circumstantial comparison. This is consistent with the SPR study in which
the only difference between contrasts is exhibited by the Circumstantial metonymy at a
window past the critical word (500–1,000 ms post-onset). Though the analyses revealed
significant main effects of location for both comparisons (and visual inspection suggests
localization biases), the non-significance of the interactions in both comparisons indicates
that the effect of condition is not systematically constrained to certain locations, consis-
tent with the findings reported by Schumacher (2013b).
We interpret the early positivity observed as the actual triggering of the metonymic
process itself, which gets further realized in the subsequent negativity. In this respect, the
N400 found in the Systematic metonymy comparison occurs in a more circumscribed
window (400–500 ms) than in the Circumstantial comparison, indicating perhaps the
difference in predictability between the two metonymies. In order to categorize this effect
as an N400, we take the more conservative approach and consider three criteria that the
pattern under question must share with the traditional N400 effect: (a) similariy in
location, (b) similarity in polarity, and (c) similarity in time course. We observe that the
pattern we found meets all three, thus rendering the effect found an N400.7 Similarly,
although the late positivity elicited in the present study differs slightly in latency from
the late positivity effects reported in Schumacher (2011, 2013a,b) and Weiland et al.
(2014), the present effect satisfies the three criteria outlined above.
In line with Weiland et al. (2014) regarding the biphasic (N400-late positivity) pattern,
we arrive at the following interpretation: The early positivity and N400 effects observed
reflect the initial trigger and search requirement by the establishment of a referential
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dependency (a retrieval process consistent with processes commonly associated with the
N400 component). Accordingly, the late positivity effect observed only for the
Circumstantial metonymy reflects the additional contextual search not supplied by
lexically encoded conventionalized knowledge. In this view, what Weiland et al. (2014)
refer to as “pragmatic adjustment” would amount to the meaning the parser must build
from context in order to meet conversational informativity. The Systematic metonymy
we examined is highly conventionalized, a property that renders it less reliant on context,
and which serves as a kind of compositional “shortcut.” Availability of conventionalized
informativity, in turn, makes the composition of the metonymy more expeditious,
ultimately resulting in less computational cost and an attenuated or absent later
positivity.
So, what we observe is that the difference in the time-course pattern between the two
metonymies (the late positivity) is consistent with the (more conservative) conclusion that
it represents a difference in degree of processing provided by relative differences in avail-
ability of conventionalization. This, together with the clear similarity in the initial time-
course pattern (early positivity and N400), is consistent with the workings of the one-
mechanism model of metonymic processing, a model in which both metonymies undergo
the same referential dependency formation. This dependency formation is triggered by
informativity demands, which differ in terms of the degree that they can be met through
conventionalized knowledge, and therefore be committed to memory and retrieved during
the real-time unfolding of the metonymy.8
Directly below, we present our third and final study in which we compare the two
metonymies through fMRI, seeking to evaluate them in terms of their respective patterns
of cortical recruitment.

4. Study 3: Functional magnetic resonance imaging

4.1. Methods

4.1.1. Participants
Here 16 undergraduate and graduate students from Yale University (7 female, age
range 18–30 years, Mage 22 years) participated in the study. They satisfied the same
requirements as in Studies 1 and 2. All participants gave written informed consent in
accordance with the guidelines set by the Yale University Human Subjects Committee
and were compensated for their participation.

4.1.2. Materials
The same 200 sentences used in Study 2 were presented in Study 3.

4.1.3. Design
The sentences were divided into groups of 10, one group of 20 sentences per run.
There were 22 words per sentence, presented for 500 ms each, resulting in a duration of
 M. M. Pi~
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11 s per sentence. Sentence ISI was 500 ms, question duration 4,000 ms, and question
ISI 500 ms. Thus, each item (including the sentence and the question) had a duration of
16 s, totaling 5 min 20 s per run.

4.2. Image acquisition

The magnetic resonance images in Study 3 were obtained using a Siemens Sonata 3-T
whole-body MRI scanner (Siemens, Erlangen, Germany). Each session began with a 3-
plane localizer, followed by a sagittal localizer, and an inversion recovery T1 weighted
scan. Anatomical images for the functional slice locations were then obtained using spin
echo imaging in axial planes parallel to the AC-PC line with TE = 2.55 ms,
TR = 300 ms, flip angle = 60 degrees, bandwidth = 300 Hz/pixel, field of
view = 224 mm 9 224 mm, and 34 slices with slice thickness = 4 mm.
During the task, we conducted event-related functional MRI using an gradient echo
EPI blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) contrast sequence, with TE = 25 ms,
TR = 2 s, flip angle = 90 degrees, bandwidth = 2,520 Hz/pixel, field of
view = 224 mm 9 224 mm, 163 measurements, and 34 slices with slice thick-
ness = 4 mm. The scanner was set to trigger the stimulus presentation program, which
enabled the image acquisition to be synchronized with the stimulus presentation.
A high-resolution volume acquisition then followed, using a 3D Magnetization
Prepared Rapid Gradient Echo sequence with TE = 2.77 ms, TR = 2,530 ms, flip
angle = 7 degrees, bandwidth = 179 Hz/pixel, field of view = 256 mm 9 256 mm, and
176 slices with slice thickness = 1 mm.

4.2.1. Data analysis

Individual subject data were analyzed using a general linear model (GLM) on each
voxel in the entire brain volume with regressors specific for each task. For each of the
sentences, there were three regressors: Event 1, Event 2, and Sentence. Event 1 was
defined as the onset of the context to the last word of the context, while Event 2 was
defined as the onset of the experimental sentence to its offset. As in the SPR and ERP
studies, the Systematic metonymy comparison (systematic metonymy vs. matched literal
control) and the Circumstantial metonymy comparison (circumstantial metonymy vs.
matched literal control) were analyzed separately, as above, because of inherent
differences in the experimental stimuli.
The resulting beta images for each task were spatially smoothed with a 6 mm Gaussian
kernel to account for variations in the location of activation across subjects. The output
maps were normalized beta-maps, which were in the acquired space
(3.438 mm 9 3.438 mm 9 5 mm).
To take these data into a common reference space, three registrations were calculated
within the Yale BioImage Suite software package (Papademetris et al., 2006). The first
registration performs a linear registration between the individual subject raw functional
image and that subject’s 2D anatomical image. The 2D anatomical image is then linearly
registered to the individual’s 3D anatomical image. The 3D differs from the 2D in that it
370 M. M. Pi~
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has a 1 mm 9 1 mm 9 1 mm resolution, whereas the 2D z-dimension is set by slice-

thickness and its x-y dimensions are set by voxel size. Finally, a nonlinear registration is
computed between the individual 3D anatomical image and a reference 3D image. The
reference brain used was the Colin27 Brain (Holmes et al., 1998), which is in Montreal
Neurological Institute (MNI) space (Evans et al., 1992) and is commonly applied in SPM
and other software packages. All three registrations were applied sequentially to the indi-
vidual normalized beta-maps to bring all data into the common reference space. Data
were corrected for multiple comparisons by spatial extent of contiguous suprathresholded
individual voxels at an experiment-wise p < .05. In a Monte Carlo simulation within the
AFNI software package and using a smoothing kernel of 6 mm and a connection radius
of 6.97 mm on 3.44 mm 9 3.44 mm 9 5 mm voxels, it was determined that an activa-
tion volume of 272 original voxels (7,336 lL) satisfied the p < .05 threshold.

4.3. Results

4.3.1. Neuroimaging results

Whole-brain analyses (corrected, p < 0.05) showed an overwhelming convergence of
activations in the left frontal cortex (Table 6).
For the Systematic metonymy comparison, preferential activations were observed at
the Event 2 (experimental sentence) in ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC; BAs 45,
47), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC; BAs 8, 9, 10, 46), and BAs 11, 32. For the
Circumstantial metonymy comparison, activations were observed at the context + experi-
mental sentence level (Event 1 + Event 2 together) in vlPFC (BAs 44, 45), dlPFC (BAs
8, 9, 46), and BA 6. Figs. 3 and 4 show different views of these activations.

4.4. Discussion

Overall, these findings demonstrate that both types of metonymy rely on the workings
of the frontal cortex with a clear left lateralization bias. Both metonymies robustly acti-
vated ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC); a

Table 6
Regions of activation
Talairach
Coords. t-values Maximum Values
Volume
Comparison Brain Regions (mm3 ) x y z Mean SD t-value Talairach
Sys. vl PFC, dlPFC, BA 11, 14,310
21
37 9 2.58 0.389 5.20
35, 45, 6
BA 32
Circ. vlPFC, dlPFC, BA 6 10,016
41 14 32 2.83 0.567 5.56
38, 14, 47
Note. For both comparisons, subtractions are Metonymy > Literal Control.
 M. M. Pi~
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degree of overlap that is consistent with a unified treatment as proposed in the one-
mechanism view.
What is also clear is that there are some differences between the two activation
patterns which are consistent with differences in degree of context reliance (convention-
alization). Specifically, regarding the left inferior frontal cortex: While both metonymies
preferentially recruited BA 45, only Circumstantial metonymy additionally recruited BA
44 and BA 6, the two other cortical regions that compose the traditional “Broca’s
area.” This is interesting not only because it supports a subdivision within Broca’s area
along previously observed lines, but also because BA 44 has been shown to “belong”
to a connectivity network that is partly distinct from that involving BA 45 (see Smir-
nov et al., 2014 for a summary of relevant findings). If this interpretation regarding
context-dependence differences between systematic and circumstantial metonymy is
right, it would allow for the possibility that it is through this latter network that
conventionalization is built: Upon encountering a metonymic trigger, the parser must

(a)

(b)

Fig. 3. Axial, coronal, and sagittal views of Metonymy > Literal Activations. (a) Systematic comparison.
(b) Circumstantial comparison. For both comparisons, subtractions are Metonymy > Literal Control. Boxed
areas highlight the specific patterns of activation.
372 M. M. Pi~
nango et al. / Cognitive Science 41 (2017)

(a) (b)

Fig. 4. Slice views of Metonymy > Literal Activations. (a) Systematic comparison. (b) Circumstantial
comparison. For both comparisons, subtractions are Metonymy > Literal Control. Boxed areas highlight the
specific patterns of activation.

establish the referential dependency. To this end, it will resort to any conventionalized
knowledge (i.e., context that has been construed) demanded by the referential relation
that the metonymy is indicating. For systematic metonymy, this information is presum-
ably readily retrieved, so no activation of this network is necessary. For circumstantial
metonymy, some conventionalized information would also be retrieved but insuffi-
ciently. And this would prompt further search through the utterance in order to meet
the contextual demands.
This possibility is further supported by the fact that whereas both metonymies
converged in their recruitment of the left inferior frontal cortex, Systematic metonymy
showed left inferior frontal cortex recruitment at the level of the experimental sentence
alone (Event 2). Circumstantial metonymy, by contrast, did so but only when the context
and the experimental sentence were taken into account together. We interpret this as an
indication of greater demand on local context by the Circumstantial condition. Such a
finding is thus consistent with the original observation that reliance on context (due to
 M. M. Pi~
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low conventionalization) in the case of circumstantial metonymy is significantly greater

than reliance on context in systematic metonymy.
We take the pattern observed here to be consistent with a unified analysis of the two
metonymies. This analysis defines conventionalization as a process of context construal
that is at work during real-time comprehension. Support for this view comes from the
additional recruitment of anterior portions of BA 6 by Circumstantial metonymy, an area
which has been implicated in the processing of “non-sequential,” “non-explicit” material
at a suprasecond temporal range (e.g., Kennerley, Sakai, & Rushworth, 2004; Passing-
ham, Bengtsson, & Lau, 2010; Schwartze, Rothermich, & Kotz, 2012), properties that are
consistent with the kind of computation we would expect for such context construal: non-
sequential, implicit, and temporally less constrained.
Finally, the convergent activation of vlPFC and dlPFC, regions previously robustly
implicated in working memory tasks in connection to lexico-semantic unification
(Hagoort, 2005) and semantic processing in general (e.g., Binder, Desai, Graves, &
Conant, 2009), is consistent with the proposal that both metonymies are underpinned by
shared principles of composition, despite their differing degrees of conventionalization.
They are also consistent with previous neuroimaging work that has reevaluated the role
of left-frontal cortical areas as areas required for linguistic composition at all levels of
representation (including “pragmatic” composition) instead of their right-hemisphere
homologs (e.g., Chen, Widick, & Chatterjee, 2008; Chiappe & Chiappe, 2007; Hagoort,
2005; Yang, Fuller, Khodaparast, & Krawczyk, 2010).

5. Summary and conclusion

In this paper, we have compared two metonymic processes, systematic and circumstan-
tial, along two key factors proposed to underpin them: conversational informativity and
conventionalization. Conversational informativity is defined as the relation of the metony-
mic context to the named entity (i.e., “noteworthiness”) that allows the metonymy coref-
erence relation to be felicitous in that context. Conventionalization is defined as the
degree of availability of context as the metonymy is composed. When the metonymy is
based on the existence of conceptual generalizations (e.g., all animate entities are produc-
ers) that allow for a relation (e.g., producer-for-product) to obtain independently of the
immediate context in which the metonymy is uttered, the metonymy is said to be conven-
tionalized. When these conceptual generalizations are less general, more variable, or sub-
ject to details of the participants (thus making it less predictable), the role of local
context in licensing the metonymy increases with the consequence that the coreference
relation on which it is built cannot be used outside that context. This makes the meto-
nymy less conventionalized.
We have asked one main question: What does the behavior of metonymy composi-
tion during real-time comprehension tell us about the role that conventionalization
plays in it? Given such a question, we have tested the predictions of two competing
possibilities: either that conventionalization acts as a categorizer, in which case
374 M. M. Pi~
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systematic metonymy is ontologically distinct from circumstantial metonymy (two-

mechanism view), or that conventionalization acts a modulator of contextual felicitous-
ness, in which case both metonymic processes are of a piece and any differences that
are introduced by conventionalization are differences of degree, not of kind (one-
mechanism view).
The multi-method approach adopted here allows us to observe the behavior of the
metonymies from a variety of potentially converging perspectives: SPR, ERP, and
fMRI. The reading time data show that when supported by context, the cost of neither
of the metonymy triggers is observable. Cost does emerge for Circumstantial meto-
nymy some time after the critical word, suggesting a further contextual adjustment
caused by its low degree of conventionalization. ERP results show that despite differ-
ences in conventionalization, both metonymies undergo a similar metonymy trigger,
and that again only Circumstantial metonymy shows a further contextualization compu-
tation reflected in the late positivity. Finally, the activation of overlapping cortical
regions, especially the vlPFC and dlPFC, suggest that these two metonymies share an
underlying processing mechanism, while differences in activation further support that
the difference between the two types of metonymy is in the degree of contextualiza-
tion needed.
There are independent reasons that suggest that the unified treatment argued for here
for the two metonymy types may be on the right track: A unified treatment is
consistent with the well-supported view in the literature that the distinction between
lexico-semantic and pragmatic processes may not be categorical but a distinction of
degree (e.g., Jackendoff, 1997; Nunberg, 1995), and a unified treatment reflects a
“smaller” grammar and therefore a more conservative grammar-context distinction
whereby interpretive variability is not encoded in the linguistic system proper but is
instead the outcome of the interaction between underspecified lexico-semantic con-
straints and context. If true, the findings presented here support an architectural
dynamic for the corresponding neurocognitive level that places the burden of semantic
variability not on the specified semantico-conceptual meanings listed in the lexicon,
but on the real-time interaction between lexical meanings and contextual content
observable as comprehension unfolds.

Acknowledgments

The research reported here was supported by NSF grants BCS-0643266 and NSF-
INSPIRE 1248100. We thank Sara Sanchez Alonso, Yao-Ying Lai, and Maria Ratskevich
for their assistance in this project, as well as James Hampton and three anonymous
reviewers for their comments and suggestions. We also thank audiences at Experimental
Research in Psycholinguistcs Conference, 2012 (Madrid, Spain) and the Cognitive
Science Annual Meeting 2014 (Montreal, Canada) where this work was presented. All
errors remain our own.
 M. M. Pi~
nango et al. / Cognitive Science 41 (2017) 375

Notes

1. On this issue of conventionalization we also note that even though circumstantial

metonymy is situation-level dependent, it is still subject to conventionalization con-
straints. In our corpus examination, we found a limited set of environments in
which this kind of metonymy is bound. Those were (a) formally partitioned struc-
tures: hotels and hospital (individual to room number), mass transit (individual to
seat number), restaurant (individual to table number) etc.; (b) formally partitioned
“consumer-based” experiences: patient to a (non-chronic) disease type, customer to
menu-item; and (c) formally partitioned temporal intervals: client-to salon appoint-
ment time, patient to doctor’s appointment time, instructor to class time, etc. The
existence of these larger frames thus suggests the extent to which circumstantial
metonymy can also be said to be conventionalized, albeit at a different, less lin-
guistically relevant, contextual level.
2. Additional observations regarding the contextual constraints on circumstantial
metonymy suggest an aspectual condition on the implied concept at play. In this
respect, Schumacher (2011) reports that native speaker intuitions regarding
acceptable metonymic uses of maladies in a hospital setting indicate that chronic,
permanent illnesses are less acceptable as warranting meaning transfer. That is, the
patient and the malady may be metonymically linked as long as the relation is tran-
sient. This means that speakers might judge (a) below as more acceptable than (b):
(a) In a hospital, a nurse tells the doctor: “The appendicitis in room 2 is feeling
dizzy.”
(b) In a hospital, a nurse tells the doctor: “The diabetes in room 2 is feeling
dizzy.”
3. This approach follows the methodological blueprint shown to be fruitful with other
potentially related semantic compositional phenomena such as complement and
aspectual coercion (Lai, Lacadie, Constable, Deo, & Pi~nango, 2014; Pi~nango &
Deo, 2012, 2015; see also Pi~ nango & Zurif, 2015, for a summary of main results).
4. Raw frequency is not useful here because both kinds of metonymies are novel–we
are not likely to find reflections of familiarity in corpora. Instead, we followed
Frisson and Pickering (2007) in norming sentences based on sensicality and con-
clude that a subject’s rating and ability to answer a question about it constitute a
measurement of familiarity with the construction itself.
5. The norming study is presented in detail in Appendix A.
6. In the Systematic metonymy comparison, the critical word “closes” the verb phrase
([to read/meet Wickstrom]VP ) while in the Circumstantial metonymy comparison,
the critical word “opens” the VP (the ham sandwich/tall woman [needs...]VP ).
7. Baggio, Choma, Van Lambalgen, and Hagoort (2010) invoke similar criteria to
their observed pattern and concede that their intended distinction between an N400
and their originally labeled negative effect cannot be made clearly because of scalp
376 M. M. Pi~
nango et al. / Cognitive Science 41 (2017)

distributions, polarity, and overlapping time courses shared with the prototypical
N400 pattern.
8. This path of interpretation thus implies that the conventionalization difference
between metonymy types stems from a difference in availability of memory
commitments. Such commitments would be driven by usage, not by grammatical
properties of the composed elements themselves.

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Appendix A: Norming

Norming of the materials was conducted using a separate group of 18- to 30-year-old
native speakers of American English. Subjects were asked to rate experimental items on
a scale of 1–5 in response to the question, “Does this sentence make sense?”
The Systematic metonymy items were normed through two surveys in combination
with another set of experimental items that was not used in this experiment. Each item
was rated by 10 subjects for a total of 20 norming participants. There was no statistically
significant difference in the average ratings of the metonymy conditions versus literal
matched control items (mean rating metonymy = 4.49/5; mean rating literal = 4.4/5; F(1,
19) = 0.280, p = .603).
The 33 Circumstantial metonymy items were normed through nine unique surveys in
combination with an additional contrast that was not used in the present study. Each sur-
vey was rated by six subjects for a total of 54 norming participants. For the Circumstan-
tial metonymy comparison, ratings for metonymy items were compared to ratings for
nonsensical items, in which the context was explicitly incompatible with a relationship
that would license the metonymic expression. The Circumstantial matched literal controls
were not included in norming, as these items differed from their matched metonymy
counterparts only in a single word or phrase and were expected to be at least as accept-
able as the metonymy items. Subjects showed a significant effect of condition (mean rat-
ing nonsensical = 1.78/5; mean rating metonymy = 4.53/5; F(1, 53) = 12.23, p < .001).
Circumstantial metonymy items received an average rating of 4.25 out of 5.