This study examined the correlation between interpretive diversity and topic semantic role in Japanese nominal metaphorical expressions, and in particular the relationship between interpretive diversity and topic semantic neighborhood density (how close the topic word is to its nearest neighbor in semantic space) and topic abstractness. In all, 43 metaphors (in both metaphor and simile form) and their interpretations were used as stimuli. The results showed topic semantic neighborhood density and abstractness to be negatively and positively correlated, respectively, with the interpretive diversity of the metaphor. In contrast, the vehicle semantic neighborhood density to be positively correlated with the interpretive diversity of the simile. These results suggest that the role of topic meanings and vehicle meanings in semantic space on their interpretations are different for metaphors and similes.
