L1 attrition and the mental lexicon

Research on the bilingual mental lexicon has progressed considerably over the past 25 years. Two questions have received particular attention in this respect, namely organisational principles of a bilingual lexicon on the one hand and chronometrical aspects of on-line access in bilinguals on the other. A third important point that has been largely neglected so far is the long-term storage of both lemmas and word forms over time. Indirectly, however, this question has been addressed through L1 attrition research within the same period. The aim of the present chapter is to present a comprehensive review of L1 attrition studies as they pertain to the study of the long-term dynamics of the bilingual mental lexicon and to unravel the contributions that this research area can make to the questions outlined above. As a highly specific situation of bilingualism, language attrition allows a perspective upon questions of the bilingual mental lexicon that can contribute insights which are impossible to gain from other situations, such as SLA.