Introduction

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter provides an introduction to the topic of the “mental lexicon,” the representation of language in the mind/brain, at the level of individual morphemes and words. The chapter summarizes the structure of the contributions within the volume, focusing on how the mind/brain represents lexical knowledge, how lexical knowledge is acquired, and how the mental lexicon contributes to language use, in listening, speaking, and conversation. Part I (‘Representing the Mental Lexicon’) introduces modern linguistic and cognitive theories of how the mind/brain represents words and sub-word units at the phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic levels. Part II (‘Acquiring the Mental Lexicon’) turns to the process through which children learn the phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic properties of words in their native language. Finally, Part III ‘(Accessing the Mental Lexicon’) examines how the mental lexicon contributes to language use during listening, speaking, and conversation, and includes perspectives from bilingualism, sign languages, and disorders of lexical access and production.