From dlevere at ILSTU.EDU Fri Nov 3 17:24:42 2006 From: dlevere at ILSTU.EDU (Daniel L. Everett) Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2006 11:24:42 -0600 Subject: Recursion in human languages, Final Call Message-ID: Date: 27-Apr-2007 - 29-Apr-2007 Location: Normal, Illinois, USA Contact Person: Daniel Everett (dlevere at ilstu.edu) Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics Call Deadline: 20-Nov-2006 Meeting Description: Recursion on Human Languages will feature presentations that address the typology, psychology, formalization, and grammatical manifestations of recursion in human languages. Recursion in Human Languages In an important paper, Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch (2002) state the following about the narrow faculty of language (FLN): ''We hypothesize that FLN only includes recursion and is the only uniquely human component of the faculty of language. We further argue that FLN may have evolved for reasons other than language, hence comparative studies might look for evidence of such computations outside of the domain of communication (for example, number, navigation, and social relations).'' As interesting as this claim might be, it is difficult to evaluate it for various reasons. For example, there is first the fact that recursion has a long and yet often unclear history in the development of formal linguistics (Tomalin (2006)). How is recursion defined? Second, the question arises as to where recursion must manifest itself in FLN. In the morphology? In the phonology? In the syntax? In the semantics? In all components of the grammar? Third, there is the empirical issue as to whether the claim above is in fact true. Is recursion found in all languages? Is it distributed throughout grammars in the same way in all languages? As a start towards addressing these and other fundamental questions about the nature of recursion in human languages, the Department of Linguistics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and Illinois State University are sponsoring a conference from April 27-29, 2007, at the campus of Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. Invited speakers for this conference are (topics are listed, rather than actual titles of presentations): -Prof. Aravind Joshi (University of Pennsylvania) - ' Uniform and non- uniform recursion -Prof. Edward Gibson (MIT) - 'The psychology of recursion' -Prof. Marianne Mithun (UCSB) - 'The typology of recursion' -Prof. D. Robert Ladd (Edinburgh) - What would 'recursion' mean in phonology?' -Prof. Daniel L. Everett (ISU) - 'Cultural constraints on recursion' -Prof. Alec Marantz (MIT) - 'Recursion in morphology' -(tentative) Prof. W. Tecumseh Fitch (St. Andrews) - 'The evolution of recursion' In addition to these invited talks, we would like to invite abstracts for up to sixteen additional talks on recursion. Abstracts may be up to 500 words in length and may address any aspect of recursion, e.g. its history, its formal nature, unusual distributions or manifestations of recursion in specific languages, etc. Abstracts must be received by November 20, 2006. Authors will be notified on abstract decisions by December 20, 2006. A webpage for this conference will be announced soon. Please send abstracts and any questions regarding this conference to: Daniel L. Everett, Professor of Linguistics & Anthropology and Chair, Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Campus Box 4300 Illinois State University Normal, Illinois 61790-4300 OFFICE: 309-438-3604 FAX: 309-438-8038 *********** β€œThe notion that the essence of what it means to be human is most clearly revealed in those features of human culture that are universal rather than in those that are distinctive to this people or that is a prejudice that we are not obliged to share... It may be in the cultural particularities of people β€” in their oddities β€” that some of the most instructive revelations of what it is to be generically human are to be found.” Clifford Geertz (1926-2006) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dlevere at ILSTU.EDU Fri Nov 3 17:24:42 2006 From: dlevere at ILSTU.EDU (Daniel L. Everett) Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2006 11:24:42 -0600 Subject: Recursion in human languages, Final Call Message-ID: Date: 27-Apr-2007 - 29-Apr-2007 Location: Normal, Illinois, USA Contact Person: Daniel Everett (dlevere at ilstu.edu) Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics Call Deadline: 20-Nov-2006 Meeting Description: Recursion on Human Languages will feature presentations that address the typology, psychology, formalization, and grammatical manifestations of recursion in human languages. Recursion in Human Languages In an important paper, Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch (2002) state the following about the narrow faculty of language (FLN): ''We hypothesize that FLN only includes recursion and is the only uniquely human component of the faculty of language. We further argue that FLN may have evolved for reasons other than language, hence comparative studies might look for evidence of such computations outside of the domain of communication (for example, number, navigation, and social relations).'' As interesting as this claim might be, it is difficult to evaluate it for various reasons. For example, there is first the fact that recursion has a long and yet often unclear history in the development of formal linguistics (Tomalin (2006)). How is recursion defined? Second, the question arises as to where recursion must manifest itself in FLN. In the morphology? In the phonology? In the syntax? In the semantics? In all components of the grammar? Third, there is the empirical issue as to whether the claim above is in fact true. Is recursion found in all languages? Is it distributed throughout grammars in the same way in all languages? As a start towards addressing these and other fundamental questions about the nature of recursion in human languages, the Department of Linguistics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and Illinois State University are sponsoring a conference from April 27-29, 2007, at the campus of Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. Invited speakers for this conference are (topics are listed, rather than actual titles of presentations): -Prof. Aravind Joshi (University of Pennsylvania) - ' Uniform and non- uniform recursion -Prof. Edward Gibson (MIT) - 'The psychology of recursion' -Prof. Marianne Mithun (UCSB) - 'The typology of recursion' -Prof. D. Robert Ladd (Edinburgh) - What would 'recursion' mean in phonology?' -Prof. Daniel L. Everett (ISU) - 'Cultural constraints on recursion' -Prof. Alec Marantz (MIT) - 'Recursion in morphology' -(tentative) Prof. W. Tecumseh Fitch (St. Andrews) - 'The evolution of recursion' In addition to these invited talks, we would like to invite abstracts for up to sixteen additional talks on recursion. Abstracts may be up to 500 words in length and may address any aspect of recursion, e.g. its history, its formal nature, unusual distributions or manifestations of recursion in specific languages, etc. Abstracts must be received by November 20, 2006. Authors will be notified on abstract decisions by December 20, 2006. A webpage for this conference will be announced soon. Please send abstracts and any questions regarding this conference to: Daniel L. Everett, Professor of Linguistics & Anthropology and Chair, Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Campus Box 4300 Illinois State University Normal, Illinois 61790-4300 OFFICE: 309-438-3604 FAX: 309-438-8038 *********** ?The notion that the essence of what it means to be human is most clearly revealed in those features of human culture that are universal rather than in those that are distinctive to this people or that is a prejudice that we are not obliged to share... It may be in the cultural particularities of people ? in their oddities ? that some of the most instructive revelations of what it is to be generically human are to be found.? Clifford Geertz (1926-2006) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: