Word knowledge and word usage: A foreword

This special issue, together with its companion issue to appear in Italian Journal of Linguistics, stems from the NetWordS Final Conference "Word knowledge and word usage: representations and processes in the mental lexicon". The conference, held on the 30th and 31st of March, and the 1st of April 2015 in Pisa, concluded the 4-year NetWordS project, the European Network of Word Structure funded by the European Science Foundation within the Research Networking Programme. In line with the highly multidisciplinary profile of NetWordS agenda, the conference offered a comprehensive and inclusive forum 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 of lexical categories, emergence of morphological structure, lexical memories, anticipatory prediction-based mechanisms of word recognition, word production, frequency-based models of lexical productivity, word encoding, models of lexical architecture, family-based effects in word processing, word reading and writing; (ii) usage-based approaches to word meanings (lexical semantics and pragmatics in morphologically simple and complex words), including: distributional semantics, compound interpretation, concept composition and coercion, conceptualization of perception and action, time and space in the lexicon, metonymy and metaphor, lexico-semantic relations, perceptual grounding and embodied cognition, context-based and encyclopedic knowledge, semantic association and categorization. The multidisciplinary focus on word knowledge and word usage promoted by the Conference led participants to openly discuss an impressive range of approaches and empirical data: priming and lexical decision in a number of contexts, distributional semantics and models of semantic composition, neural networks, 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 different angles has an additive effect on the impact of current language research. Certainly more can be achieved, however, if, rather than simply adding more perspectives on the same subject, with individual research efforts staying within the boundaries of single knowledge domains, scholars manage to integrate them into a boundary-shifting methodological perspective. When psycholinguistic evidence from humans is successfully replicated algorithmically through a computational model implementing a few well-understood principles of time-series processing, we are in a position to empirically assess what input conditions favour memorisation and acquisition of symbolic strings by the model, and test these algorithmic predictions back on human subjects, thus going 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 of WHERE and WHEN some cognitive processes are implemented in the brain will be complemented by knowledge of WHAT information they rely on and HOW they integrate it. Other compelling examples of the full potential of cross-disciplinary integration can be found in the present volume and in the twin issue of Italian Journal of Linguistics. As a general point, we contend that only by putting single-domain acquisitions into the wider context of human communication, and developing an interdisciplinary framework whereby each specialist will take advantage of insights from other disciplines, we can make substantial progress in our understanding of the lexical roots of human verbal communication in real contexts.