Events
Specific language impairment and the language faculty debate
February 20, 2008Theoretical perspectives from recent work in artificial language learning, together with data from Specific Language Impairment (SLI) in children and other developmental disorders (e.g. Dyslexia) will be used to inform our debate.
9am-Noon
William James Hall, 7th floor Seminar Room
Contact Info:
hvdlely@wjh.harvard.edu
Semantic interfaces: cross-disciplinary and cross-linguistic perspectives
April 20, 2007Friday, April 20, 2007.
9:30-3:30pm.
CGIS South, Room S250, 1730 Cambridge Street.
Speakers:
Chris Kennedy
Lisa Matthewson
Julie Sedivy
Ira Noveck
A workshop exploring current research on semantic interfaces from a cross-disciplinary and cross-linguistic perspectives. Our discussion will focus on unanswered questions, the gaps between different disciplinary approaches and desiderata for future research.
Noveck paper 1
Noveck paper 2
Sedivy paper
Matthewson main paper
Matthewson further background
Kennedy paper
Please RSVP to Carissa Shafto (ckemp@wjh.harvard.edu)
9:30: Welcome and introductions
9:40: Ira Noveck (Institut des Sciences Cognitives, Lyon)
Commentary, (Ted Gibson, MIT), and Discussion
10:40: Coffee Break
11:00: Lisa Matthewson (University of British Columbia)
Commentary (Sabine Iatridou, MIT) and Discussion
12:00: Julie Sedivy (Brown University)
Commentary (Bernhard Nickel, Harvard) and Discussion
1:00: Lunch
1:40: Chris Kennedy (University of Chicago)
Commentary (David Barner, Toronto) and Discussion
2:40: Roundtable Discussion (moderated by Gennaro Chierchia and Jesse Snedeker)
Show-and-Tell at PED
November 15, 2006Participating faculty members will each present a 10-minute research overview, with interspersed discussion and lunch.
One Brattle Sq, Suite 6. Noon-4pm.
Tentative Schedule:
12-12:30 Welcome, Lunch will be Served
12:30-12:45 Martin Nowak
12:45-1:00 Marc Hauser
1:00-1:15 Discussion
1:15-1:30 Jesse Snedeker
1:30-145: Andrew Nevins
1:45-2:00 Discussion
2:00-2:15 Masha Polinsky
2:15-2:30 David Caplan
2:30-2:45 Discussion
2:45-3:00 Bernhard Nickel
3:00-3:15 Alvaro Pascual Leone
3:15-:3:45 General Discussion
(Directions: http://www.ped.fas.harvard.edu/location.html)
IMPORTANT: Graduate students are welcome and encouraged to attend.
PLEASE, as soon as you see this, RSVP for Laura Abbott (labbott@fas)
so that we may plan for lunch with a reasonable estimate of head-count, er, stomach-count.
The Artificial Grammar Workshop
October 20, 2006Speakers: Arthur Reber, LouAnn Gerken, Luca Onnis
Location: MBB Center on 42 Church Street
Time: 9:30am-3pm
Description: A focused discussion of methods and questions in artificial grammar experimental research
Reber's paper: here
Gerken's paper: here
Onnis' paper: here
Please RSVP to Andrew Nevins & Tim O'Donnell (timo@wjh.harvard.edu)
930-1015: Discussion of Reber's paper, Comments by Hauser
10:15-11: Discussion of Onnis' paper, Comments by O'Donnell
11-11:15 break, coffee
1115-12: Discussion of Gerken's paper, Comments by Nevins
12-1245: Discussion of ongoing Artificial Grammar Research at Harvard
1245-2: Lunch
2-3:30 General Discussion, moderated by Nevins
Discussion questions:
+ What is the relationship between the mechanisms which adults use to perform Artificial Language Learning tasks and language learning in children? What are the limits of these mechanisms?
+How can Artificial Language Learning experiments tell us about the
origins of language structure?
+ How we should think about constraints from general learning on extraction of grammars?
+How can we better design the input so as to be more confident about the process of extraction?
+How can we work toward taking core principles in linguistics and making them experimentally tractable?
+From the perspective of linguists/psycholinguists, is there any interest in studies of animals that involve intensive training or is this a waste of time?
