Word knowledge and word usage: A foreword

This special issue, together with its companion issue to appear in Italian Journalof Linguistics, stems from the NetWordS Final Conference "Wordknowledge and word usage: representations and processes in the mental lexicon".The conference, held on the 30th and 31st of March, and the 1st of April2015 in Pisa, concluded the 4-year NetWordS project, the European Networkof Word Structure funded by the European Science Foundation within the ResearchNetworking Programme. In line with the highly multidisciplinary profileof NetWordS agenda, the conference offered a comprehensive and inclusiveforum focussing on two main lines of lexical inquiry:(i) usage-based approaches to bootstrapping word form and structure(morpho-phonological and morpho-syntactic issues), including: acquisition oflexical categories, emergence of morphological structure, lexical memories,anticipatory prediction-based mechanisms of word recognition, word production,frequency-based models of lexical productivity, word encoding, modelsof lexical architecture, family-based effects in word processing, word readingand writing;(ii) usage-based approaches to word meanings (lexical semantics andpragmatics in morphologically simple and complex words), including: distributionalsemantics, compound interpretation, concept composition and coercion,conceptualization of perception and action, time and space in the lexicon,metonymy and metaphor, lexico-semantic relations, perceptual groundingand embodied cognition, context-based and encyclopedic knowledge, semanticassociation and categorization.The multidisciplinary focus on word knowledge and word usage promotedby the Conference led participants to openly discuss an impressive range ofapproaches and empirical data: priming and lexical decision in a number ofcontexts, distributional semantics and models of semantic composition, neuralnetworks, machine learning and mathematical modelling of empirical evidence,as well as their neuro-biological and neuro-functional correlates.It is widely acknowledged that looking at the same problem from differentangles has an additive effect on the impact of current language research. Certainly more can be achieved, however, if, rather than simply adding more perspectiveson the same subject, with individual research efforts staying withinthe boundaries of single knowledge domains, scholars manage to integratethem into a boundary-shifting methodological perspective. When psycholinguisticevidence from humans is successfully replicated algorithmicallythrough a computational model implementing a few well-understood principlesof time-series processing, we are in a position to empirically assess whatinput conditions favour memorisation and acquisition of symbolic strings bythe model, and test these algorithmic predictions back on human subjects, thusgoing full circle. This may have a multiplicative effect on current research,providing not only mathematical modelling of present behavioural evidence,but amounting to fully explanatory mechanisms. Our current understanding ofWHERE and WHEN some cognitive processes are implemented in the brain willbe complemented by knowledge of WHAT information they rely on and HOWthey integrate it.Other compelling examples of the full potential of cross-disciplinary integrationcan be found in the present volume and in the twin issue of ItalianJournal of Linguistics. As a general point, we contend that only by puttingsingle-domain acquisitions into the wider context of human communication,and developing an interdisciplinary framework whereby each specialist willtake advantage of insights from other disciplines, we can make substantialprogress in our understanding of the lexical roots of human verbal communicationin real contexts. The edited selection of papers presented here providesa representative sample of the range of approaches debated at the NetWordSPisa Conference, by way of illustration of how aspects of knowledge integrationand methodological innovation can be put at the service of a better understandingof broad lexical issues.