Simpson, G.B.; Burgess, C., & Peterson, R.R. (1988). Human comprehension processes and the indeterminacy of meaning. Cognitive Systems, 2, 213-232.

The human comprehension of language is discussed in terms of the necessity of a comprehension system to deal with indeterminacy at several levels. The problems of recognizing words with two or more distinct meanings (lexical ambiguity) is used as a model for such indeterminacy. Issues relevant to lexical ambiguity processing are discussed for their application to other recognition phenomena at the word level, and also to certain kinds of figurative language that present the comprehension system with the necessity of a decision concerning which of several interpretations of a message is appropriate in context.