Words with complex semantic types such as book are characterised by a multiplicity of interpretations that are not mutually exclusive (e.g., as a physical object and/or informational content). Their status with respect to lexical ambiguity is notoriously unclear, and it is debatable whether complex types are a particular form of polysemy (closely related to metonymy) or whether they belong to monosemy. In this study, we investigate the nature of complex types by conducting two experiments on ambiguous nouns in French. The first experiment collects speakers’ judgements about the sameness of meaning between different uses of complex-type, metonymic and monosemous words. The second experiment uses a priming paradigm and a sensicality task to investigate the online processing of complex-type words, as opposed to metonymic and monosemous words. Overall results indicate that, on a continuum of lexical ambiguity, complex types are closer to monosemy than to metonymy. The different interpretations of complex-type words are highly connected and fall under the same meaning, arguably in relation to a unique reference. These results suggest that complex types are associated with single underspecified entries in the mental lexicon. Moreover, they highlight the need for a model of lexical representations of ambiguous words that can account for the difference between complex types and metonymy.

具有复杂语义类型的单词（例如书籍）的特征在于具有多种不互相排斥的解释（例如，作为物理对象和/或信息内容）。众所周知，它们在词汇歧义方面的地位是不明确的，而且复杂类型是否是多义词的一种特殊形式（与转喻密切相关）还是属于单一义词是有争议的。在这项研究中，我们通过对法语中的歧义名词进行两个实验来研究复杂类型的性质。第一个实验收集了说话者对复杂类型、转喻和单义词的不同用法之间的意义相同性的判断。第二个实验使用启动范式和感性任务来研究复杂类型单词的在线处理，而不是转喻和单义单词。总体结果表明，在词汇歧义的连续体上，复杂类型更接近于单一义而不是转喻。复杂类型词的不同解释是高度相关的，并且属于相同的含义，可以说与独特的参考相关。这些结果表明，复杂类型与心理词典中单个未指定的条目相关。此外，他们强调需要一个歧义词的词汇表示模型来解释复杂类型和转喻之间的差异。