Nouns and verbs as grammatical classes in the lexicon

The present study addresses the issue of the distinction between nouns and verbs in the lexicon and investigates if and to what extent the grammatical properties of nouns and verbs play a role in organizing the lexical knowledge. Evidence from linguistics, cognitive psychology and cognitive neuropsychology of language is reviewed in order to support the conclusions that, among many other dimensions, nouns and verbs are represented as grammatical classes in speakers’ lexical knowledge. Furthermore, the grammatical knowledge of the two classes of words plays the role of an organizational principle in the lexicon, and contributes to explain the organization and the format of words’ representations as well as their possible neural and functional damages .