CompLang will resume this Spring semester. The group will be meeting on Thursdays at 5pm, in MIT room 32-370. There is something new this semester: in addition to the regular invited talks, the group will be hosting discussions on foundational topics in the language sciences. Each of these new meetings is centered around a reading, selected as a springboard for fruitful interdisciplinary discussion and debate. You can find the talk and reading schedule for this semester online on the CompLang website.
This week, the group will read and discuss “Structures, not strings: linguistics as part of the cognitive sciences”. Details follow below.
Paper to read: Structures, not strings: linguistics as part of the cognitive sciences by Everaert et al. (2015)
Presenter: Peng Qian (MIT BCS)
Date and time: Thursday, 2/14, 5-6pm
Location: 32-370
Details: This
review paper views human language as a computational system in the
mind, primarily
for the expression of thoughts. With several examples from semantics,
syntax, morphology, and phonology, this paper illustrates the central
role of hierarchical structures, not linear properties of strings, in
formulating an explanatory and theoretical characterization
of linguistic knowledge.
We would like to invite you to join us in thinking and discussing the
insights and critical aspects of the arguments outlined in this review
paper, and how different perspectives, alternative approaches, and
interdisciplinary methodologies could enrich our
inquiry and understanding of human language.