Evolution of Language Conference

Fri Mar 6 13:29:18 UTC 1998

                  (Apologies for multiple postings)

********THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE********

                    2nd International Conference

         Date: Monday 6th - Thursday 9th April, 1998

                 Venue: City University, London

Organised by: Prof. JEAN AITCHISON (Oxford University), Prof.
JAMES HURFORD (University of Edinburgh) and Dr. CHRIS KNIGHT
(University of East London)

A preliminary programme for this conference is now available. Further
details and a registration form can be obtained from:

Joan Tremble
UEL Business Services
Duncan House
High Street
London E15 2JB

Tel. 0181 2150705
Fax: 0181 849 3619
Email: J.Tremble at uel.ac.uk

or from our website at:

http://www.uel.ac.uk/faculties/socsci/anthro/confreg.htm

PRELIMINARY PROGRAMME

Monday 6th April
2pm-6pm - Plenary Session
2pm OPENING REMARKS
2.10 JEAN AITCHISON 'Language origins and (psycho-) linguistic
theories' 2.40 COLIN RENFREW 'Small talk, or why was the `Human
Revolution' so impressive' 3.10 MARK PAGEL 'The history, rate and
pattern of world linguistic evolution' 3.40 TEA/COFFEE BREAK 4.10
TERRENCE DEACON 'Constraints on brain-language co-evolution' 4.40
DEREK BICKERTON 'Protolanguage to language: the rest of the story'
5.10 ROBERT BERWICK 'Evolution and language acquisition: from
`classical' to `modern' models of evolutionary innovation' 5.40
GENERAL DISCUSSION

Tuesday 7th April
9am-1pm - Parallel Session
ROOM ONE
9am HEIDI LYN SAFFER & E. SUE SAVAGE-RUMBAUGH 'Observational word
learning in Bonobos (Pan paniscus)' 9.25 MICHAEL BERAN, E. SUE
SAVAGE-RUMBAUGH & KAREN BRAKKE 'Language comprehension in three
chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): effect of rearing on level of
comprehension' 9.50 ROBERT WORDEN 'Words, memes and language
evolution' 10.15 PAUL BLOOM 'The evolution of words' 10.40 TEA/COFFEE
BREAK 11.05 WILLIAM ABLER 'Algebraic Syntax' 11.30 EZEQUIEL DI PAOLO
'Spatio-temporal and structural constraints in the evolution of
communication' 11.55 ANGELO CANGELOSI & STEVAN HARNAD 'Adaptive
advantages of `hearsay' over direct sensorimotor experiences' 12.20
GENERAL DISCUSSION

Tuesday 7th April
9am-1pm - Parallel Session
ROOM TWO
9am PETER MACNEILAGE & BARBARA DAVIS 'Evolution of speech: the
relation between ontogeny and phylogeny' 9.25 MARILYN MAY VIHMAN &
RORY DE PAOLIS 'The role of mimesis in infant language development:
evidence for phylogeny?' 9.50 LUC STEELS 'The origins of linguistic
categories' 10.15 TEA/COFFEE BREAK 10.40 JOHN BATALI 'The negotiation
and acquisition of recursive grammars as a result of competition among
exemplars' 11.05 SIMON KIRBY 'How compositionality emerges from
vocabulary in a population of learners' 11.30 JAMES HURFORD 'Syntax
creation from randomness' 11.55 TED BRISCOE 'How natural is natural
language? Human languages as complex adaptive systems' 12.20 GENERAL
DISCUSSION

Tuesday 7th April
2pm-5pm - Parallel Session
ROOM ONE
2pm DEAN FALK 'Proto-music and proto-language in Australopithecines
and beyond' 2.25 JAMES STEELE 'Right-shifted handedness frequencies: a
marker of selection for proto-language abilities?' 2.50 TIM CROW 'Did
Homo sapiens speciate (and language originate) on the Y chromosome?'
3.15 TEA/COFFEE BREAK 3.40 MYRNA GOPNIK 'Language evolution = rules
and representations' 4.05 HEATHER K. J. VAN DER LELY 'Evidence for a
grammar specific deficit in children: implications for the biological
evolution of language' 4.30 GENERAL DISCUSSION 5.00 POSTER
PRESENTATIONS

Tuesday 7th April
2pm-5pm - Parallel Session
ROOM TWO
2pm PETER GARDENFORS & SIMON WINTER 'Evolving social constraints on
individual conceptual relations' 2.25 ALISON WRAY 'Holistic
utterances: the common link from primates to humans' 2.50 TEA/COFFEE
BREAK 3.15 JASON NOBLE 'The evolution of communication with and
without conflicts of interest; an argument for modelling
proto-proto-language' 3.40 EDWARD KAKO 'Reconstructing proto-language
from the capacities of language-trained animals' 4.05 GWEN HEWITT &
ANN MACLARNON 'Respiratory adaptations: protolanguage and
fission-fusion groups' 4.30 GENERAL DISCUSSION 5.00 POSTER
PRESENTATIONS

Wednesday 8th April
9am-1pm - Parallel Session
ROOM ONE
9am STEVEN MITHEN 'Thought, language and the manufacture of hand-axes'
9.25 ALEXANDER MARSHACK 'Coevolution of the language and visual
capacities: the archaeological and cognitive evidence' 9.50 DANIEL
DOR, EVA JABLONKA, SHIMONA GINZBERG & GEVA RECHAV 'Linguistic meaning,
linguistic sound, and the mechanism of genetic assimilation: towards
an explicit model of the evolution of language' 10.15 TEA/COFFEE BREAK
10.40 PAUL VOGT 'The evolution of a lexicon and meaning in robotic
agents through self-organizing adaptation' 11.05 MIKE OLIPHANT
'Rethinking the language bottleneck: why don't animals learn to
communicate?' 11.30 GEOFFREY MILLER & PETER TODD 'Evolution of
vocabulary size through runaway sexual selection: theory, data and
simulations' 11.55 JOHN LOCKE 'Rank, reciprocity and relationships in
the evolution of language' 12.20 GENERAL DISCUSSION

Wednesday 8th April
9am-1pm - Parallel Session
ROOM TWO
9am JEFFREY LAITMAN, SAMUEL MARQUEZ & JOY REIDENBERG 'New insights
from Neanderthal craniofacial biology and implications for
understanding their vocal abilities and speech' 9.25 PHILIP LIEBERMAN
'On the functional language system of the human brain' 9.50 LYNNE
SCHEPARTZ 'The evolution of complex language from a Darwinian
perspective' 10.15 IAN MADDIESON 'Vowel systems and language origin'
10.40 TEA/COFFEE BREAK 11.05 MICHAEL STUDDERT-KENNEDY 'Implications of
the particulate principle for the evolution of language' 11.30
TECUMSEH FITCH 'Vocal tract anatomy, formants and the evolution of
speech' 11.55 RENE CARRE 'The origin of speech gestures' 12.20 GENERAL
DISCUSSION

Wednesday 8th April
2pm-5pm - Parallel Session
ROOM ONE
2pm JEAN LOUIS DESSALLES 'Linguistic relevance in hominidae politics
2.25 ROBERT KLUENDER 'Getting from there to here: the intermediating
role of ritual in the evolution of language' 2.50 CHRIS KNIGHT 'Ritual
and the evolution of syntactical speech' 3.15 TEA/COFFEE BREAK 3.40
ROBIN DUNBAR 'The freerider problem and the evolution of language'
4.05 CAMILLA POWER 'Secret language in contexts of female initiation
ritual' 4.30 GENERAL DISCUSSION 5.00 POSTER PRESENTATIONS

Wednesday 8th April
2pm-5pm - Parallel Session
ROOM TWO
2pm APRIL MCMAHON 'The evolution of phonological constraints'
2.25 JAN ANWARD & BJORN LINDBLOM 'Morphogenesis: the systemic growth
of linguistic form' 2.50 TEA/COFFEE BREAK 3.15 ANDREW
CARSTAIRS-MCCARTHY 'The distinction between sentences and noun
phrases: an impediment to language evolution?' 3.40 BART DE BOER
'Emergence of sound systems through self-organisation' 4.05 DANIEL
LIVINGSTONE & COLIN FYFE 'A computational model of language-physiology
coevolution' 4.30 ANN MACLARNON & GWEN HEWITT 'Protolanguage to
language: evidence from the evolution of breathing control' 5.00
GENERAL DISCUSSION

Thursday 9th April
9am-1pm - Plenary Session
9am FREDERICK NEWMEYER 'On the reconstruction of 'proto-world' word
order' 9.30 DAVID LIGHTFOOT 'The maladaptiveness of Universal Grammar'
10.00 MICHAEL FORTESCUE 'Linguistic bottlenecks and early population
movements' 10.30 TEA/COFFEE BREAK 11.00 ROBBINS BURLING 'Comprehension
and production in early language' 11.30 LUCA CAVALLI-SFORZA 'A view of
the relationships between genetics and linguistics' 12.00 GENERAL
DISCUSSION 12.30 CONCLUDING REMARKS

(The organisers reserve the right to make changes to the programme at
any time)