Understanding the Architecture of the Mental Lexicon: Integration of Existing Approaches

The 1st NetWordS Workshop, held on the 24th, 25th and 26th of November 2011 in the Research Area of the Italian National Research Council, brought together 37 participants (Scholars, Post-Docs, PhD students) from various European countries. Eighteen speakers, experts of various scientific domain and with different theoretical inclinations, discussed cross-disciplinary approaches to the Understanding of the Architecture of Mental Lexicon, reflecting the interdisciplinarity and synergy fostered by NetWordS, the European Research Networking Programme on Word Structure The workshop was organised with the ambitious goal of paving the way towards a European interdisciplinary research agenda on the Mental Lexicon for the coming 10 years, with particular emphasis on the three main challenges that NetWordS is intended to address: - Lexicon and Rules in the grammar - Word knowledge and word use - Words and meanings Leading scholars, mostly connected through NetWordS, were invited to address three basic questions: - What are, in the speaker's area of expertise, the most pressing open issues concerning the architecture of the Mental Lexicon? - What and how can progress in other research areas contribute to addressing these issues? - What can advancement in our understanding of these issues contribute to progress in other areas?