Multilingual lexical operations

This paper begins by providing a brief historical overview of perspectives on the notion of cross-linguistic influence. It goes on to discuss the application of this notion to the lexical domain, and then offers some thoughts on what cross-lexical interaction does and does not imply with regard to the organization of the mental lexicon. In particular, the paper argues that the first language mental lexicon and the mental lexicons of additional languages known to an individual are neither impermeably separate nor radically unitary. It also calls into question the proposition that cross-lexical interplay is simply a matter of languages blurring into one another.