Recently in the headlines

Sorry I haven't done one of these for a while! I didn't realize it had been so long!

• NS: Talk with a dolphin via underwater translation machine
• BBC: Chimpanzees' 66 gestures
• NSF: Irene Pepperberg
• Discover: Similar to birdsongs, electric "languages" are transmitted by fish in African rivers
• NS: Baby brain expert: 'ums' and 'ers' help children learn
• PLoS ONE: Bonobos extract meaning from call sequences
• PLoS ONE: Chimpanzee vocal signaling points to a multimodal origin of human language
• NYT: Languages grew from a seed in Africa, study says
• Nature: Universal truths (commentary on 'Evolved structure of language...')
• SD: Through the looking glass: research into the brain's ability to understand mirror-image words sheds light on dyslexia
• BBC: Monkeys display basic numeracy
• NS: Evolution of cognition might be down to brain chemistry
• SD: Sign language users read words and see signs simultaneously
• SD: Tweeting teenage songbirds reveal impact of social cues on learning
• SD: Homoplasy: a good thread to pull to understand the evolutionary ball of yarn
• SD: Language patterns are rollercoaster ride during childhood development
• SD: Infants raised in bilingual environments can distinguish unfamiliar languages
• NS: Toddlers know counting rules at 18 months
• NS: Without language, numbers make no sense
• SD: Recognizing gibbons from their regional accents
• TICS: Songs to syntax: the lingustics of birdsong

Conference: New Perspectives on Language Creativity

New Perspectives on Language Creativity: Composition and Recursion
Montréal - September 25-27, 2011

This conference addresses central issues on the computational procedure that gives rise to the discrete infinity of language from a biolinguistic perspective (Lenneberg 1967; Chomsky 1995, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2011; Chierchia 1995, 2004, 2006; Wexler 1996, 2003; Riemsdijk 1998, 2004; Jenkins 2000, 2004, 2011; Pica 2001, 2008; Yang 2002, 2011; Di Sciullo 2005; Pesetsky 2007, 2009; Piattelli-Palmarini & Uriagereka 2008; Friederici 2009; Friedrich & Friederici 2009; Hinzen 2009, 2011; Longobardi & Guardiano 2009, 2011; Di Sciullo et al. 2010; Larson, Déprez & Yamakido 2010; Mukherj 2010; Stabler 2010, 2011; Berwick & Larson 2011; Chomsky 2011; Di Sciullo & Boeckx 2011; Kosta 2011; Lasnik 2011, among other works). It aims to bring long lasting questions on language creativity into new light. It invites contributions on the properties of the composition operation and of the recursive procedure that might very well account for much of the progress made by the human species. It also invites contributions on the neuronal substrate of this computational procedure and raises the question whether this neuronal faculty subserves grammar as well as other recursive systems, including mathematics and music. Finally, it invites contributions that deepen our understanding of the relations between biology and language impairments.

The questions raised thus include, without being limited to, the following:

What is the computational procedure giving rise to the discrete infinity of language?
What do we know about its neuronal substrate?
Why does this procedure seems to be limited in some cases, e.g. complements, and unbounded in other cases, e.g. adjuncts?
Does this computational procedure also subserve mathematics and music?
How do interfaces propagate language creativity?
How does language creativity relate to the genetically attested language disorders and speech impairments?

This conference is part of the cycle of conferences organized by the Biolinguistic Network (www.biolinguistics.uqam.ca) and will be held at the Université du Québec à Montreal on September 25-27, 2011.

The Conferences organized by the International Biolinguistic Network are supported by the Major Collaborative Research on Interface Asymmetries funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and by the Dynamic Interfaces project funded by the Government of Quebec Fonds de recherche sur la société et la culture.

Invited speakers:

Roland Friedrich (Department of Mathematics, Humboldt University in Berlin & Department of Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig)
Peter Kosta (Department of Slavic Linguistics, University of Potsdam)
Nirmalangshu Mukherj (Department of Philosophy, University of Delhi)
David Pesetsky (Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, MIT)
Pierre Pica (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris)
Henk C. van Riemsdijk (Founder of GLOW, Tilburg University)
Edward Stabler (Department of linguistics, UCLA)

Selection Committee:

Gennaro Chierchia (Harvard University)
Roberto De Almeida (Concordia University)
Anna Maria Di Sciullo (UQAM)
Wolfram Hinzen (Durham University)
Richard Larson (Stony Brook University)
Howard Lasnik (University of Maryland)
Giuseppe Longobardi (University of Trieste)
Ken Wexler (MIT)

Organizing Committee:

Anna Maria Di Sciullo (UQAM)
Calin Batori (UQAM)
Stanca Somesfalean (UQAM)

Call for Papers:

We invite abstracts for oral or poster presentations on these topics.

Abstracts should not exceed one page, 12 pt. single spaced, with an optional additional page for examples and references. Either PDF or Word format is accepted.

Submissions should be anonymous. Contact details (name, affiliation and e-mail) along with the title of the talk or poster should be included in the body of the e-mail.

Abstracts should be sent to: biolinguistics.uqamgmail.com

Important Dates:

Deadline for submission: June 13, 2011
Notification of acceptance: June 27, 2011
Conference: September 25-27, 2011

Conference: Workshop on Verbal Elasticity

Workshop on Verbal Elasticity
Framing the Verb/Satellite Distinction from a Biolinguistic Perspective
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona - October 3-5, 2011.

Much recent literature has been devoted to study the parametric factors that determine what information (path, manner, result, etc.) can be encoded in verbs, which lies at the heart of typological distinctions such as Talmy's cut between 'satellite-framed' vs. 'verb-framed' languages (Acedo 2010, Demonte 2010, Folli 2002, Talmy 2000, and references therein). Most proposals on this topic focus on the question whether such a distinction is to be attributed to the differences between the categories V and P (Fábregas 2007, Gehrke 2008), the availability of some additional mechanism available only in certain languages ('manner incorporation', 'lexical subordination', etc.; Harley 2005, Haugen 2009, Mateu & Rigau 2008, McIntyre 2004, Zubizarreta & Oh 2007), and the possibility that the relevant parameter has additional consequences outside the VP domain (Demonte 1991, Folli & Ramchand 2005, Snyder 1995, 2001, Svenonius & Son 2008).

This workshop aims at discussing the nature of the 'satellite-framed' vs. 'verb-framed' distinction, its cross-linguistic complexities (resultatives, the P-V interaction, N-N compounding, P stranding, etc.), and its relevance for the study of variation within the context of the biolinguistic enterprise (Boeckx 2006, 2009, Di Sciullo & Boeckx 2011, Piattelli-Palmarini et al. 2009, and references therein) and minimalism (Biberauer 2008, Biberauer et al. 2010, Chomsky 1993 and sub., Chomsky & Berwick 2011, and others).

The workshop is organized by Centre de Lingüística Teòrica at UAB within the research project FFI2010-20634 (subprograma FILO) ‘A New Biolinguistic Orientation for Linguistic Variation’, whose PI is Cedric Boeckx.

Invited Speakers:

Heidi Harley (University of Arizona)
Jaume Mateu (Centre de Lingüística Teòrica - Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Gillian Ramchand (University of Tromsø)
Koji Sugisaki (Mie University)
Juan Uriagereka (University of Maryland)
María Luisa Zubizarreta (University of Southern California) & Dong-sik Lim (Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas)

Call for Papers:

Abstracts are invited for oral presentations (30 minute presentation, plus 10 minute question period) on any topic that contributes to improving our understanding on the described topics. Abstracts should be at most two pages long (A4 paper), including examples and references, with 1 inch/2.5 cm. margins on all sides and 12 font size. The abstract should have a title but should not identify the author(s). Submissions are limited to 1 individual and 1 joint abstract per author.

Abstracts should be written in English, and must be submitted electronically only in PDF format to the following address: biolinguistics.bcngmail.com

The deadline for submission is May 23rd 2011.

Organizing Committee:

Víctor Acedo-Matellán (CLT-UAB)
Cedric Boeckx (ICREA & CLT-UAB)
Ángel J. Gallego (CLT-UAB)

Call for papers: Biolinguistics Workshop at 2012 LSA Annual Meeting

In conjunction with the LSA Special Interest Group on Biolinguistics, we invite the submission of abstracts for a proposed Workshop on Biolinguistics at the 2012 LSA Annual Meeting (Portland, January 5-8). We invite abstracts on any aspect of the biolinguistic enterprise, keeping in mind that the Special Interest Group on Biolinguistics was founded in part to “contribute to the field by helping to identify what makes biolinguistics ‘bio’ (and ‘linguistic’), initiate discussions on how it differs from previous models of generative grammar (and how it doesn’t), debate whether generative grammar is actually a prerequisite… and so on.”

Abstracts should be between 200-500 words and need not be anonymous. (The LSA reviews Workshop proposals non-anonymously.) Please, no more than one single-authored and one joint-authored abstract per person. All participants are required to be LSA members. However, anyone may submit an abstract, so long as they join the LSA if they ultimately present.

Please send abstracts, preferably in PDF format, by April 10, 2011 to:

Kleanthes Grohmann at kleanthi@ucy.ac.cy

Bridget Samuels at bridget@umd.edu

Biolinguistics videos

Thanks to Joel Zavala Tovar, here are some links to video lectures about the biolinguistic enterprise:

• Noam Chomsky, "The biology of the language faculty: its perfection, past & future"
• Sam Epstein & Dan Seely, "The anatomy of biolinguistic minimalism"

Conference: EVOLANG

Conference: EVOLANG
March 13-16, 2012
Kyoto, Japan
http://kyoto.evolang.org/

The 9th International Conference on the Evolution of Language invites substantive contributions relating to the evolution of human language. Submissions may be in any relevant discipline, including, but not limited to, anthropology, archeology, artificial life, biology, cognitive science, genetics, linguistics, modeling, paleontology, physiology, primatology, and psychology. Normal standards of academic excellence apply. Submitted papers should aim to make clear their own substantive claim, relating this to relevant scientific literature, and briefly setting out the method by which the claim is substantiated, the nature of the relevant data, and/or the core of the theoretical argument concerned. Submissions may be theory-based, but empirical studies should not rest on preliminary results.

TYPES OF SUBMISSION
Attendees are limited to one first-authored podium presentation and one first-authored poster per person. There is no limit on second-authored presentations or posters. There are two possible types of submission: Full Papers, which can have a length of between 6 and 8 pages, and Abstracts, which can be up to 2 pages long. All accepted submissions will be published in the proceedings of the conference in a bound volume. All papers or abstracts accepted will be allotted the same presentation length (probably 25 minutes plus 10 minutes discussion). In addition to podium presentations, a dedicated poster session will be held. There will be prizes for the best student presentation and the best poster (from any author); please see below. Please indicate whether your submission is to be considered for inclusion as a talk only, a poster only, or both. Submissions should be made via the conference website http://kyoto.evolang.org/.

PRIZES
The Hurford Prize, which is sponsored by Oxford University Press, is awarded at each Evolang conference to the best student presentation, as judged by the Evolang organising committee. The prize is 200GBP of OUP books.

The Interaction Studies Best Poster Prize is sponsored by John Benjamins. It is open to all, and includes a 200 euro cash award, and a year’s free subscription to Interaction Studies.


Submissions due: 15 August 2011 http://kyoto.evolang.org/
Acceptance notifications: 15 October 2011
Final versions due: 1 November 2011

Group leaders sought at SISSA

The Cognitive Neuroscience Sector at SISSA, in Trieste, Italy, seeks to recruit 2 independent group leaders, one to carry out research in Brain and Language and the other in Cognitive Neuroscience of Social Behaviour. The positions are for 3 years, renewable for 3 more.

The call for applications, in Italian for bureaucratic reasons, is available athttp://www.sissa.it/main/?p=A3_B4&id=933, with deadline February 28. Candidates are sought worldwide, and all academic activities at SISSA are conducted in English.

SISSA is one of the three purely postgraduate and postdoctoral institutions within the Italian university system, consistently ranked at the top by measures ranging from publications to external funding to visibility outside of Italy. It is keen to enhance its international character and its intellectual diversity. The Sector currently has 25 PhD students supported on SISSA fellowships, over half of whom are not Italians. Postdocs, however, are normally supported by individual research funding. Faculty members are required to teach limited PhD mini-courses, and to individually supervise the research of students in their groups. Further information about the Sector can be found on the http://www.sissa.it/cns/ and informal inquiries are welcome, e.g. by e-mail to alessandrotreves@gmail.com, with a CV attached, or by phone +39-040-3787623

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SISSA - Cognitive Neuroscience - via Bonomea 265, 34136 Trieste, Italy
rm:241 tel:39040-3787623 fax:39040-3787528
http://people.sissa.it/~ale