Special 1-day MIT Workshop: Where Does Syntax Come From? Have We All Been Wrong?

[pcomp at hunter.cuny.edu]

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Final Call for Participation

Special 1-day MIT Workshop:

Where Does Syntax Come From? Have We All Been Wrong?

Cambridge, MA, October 19th, 2007

*** Note Room Change! ***

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When:
Friday, October 19th,  2007,  9 am - 5:45 pm
(breakfast 9-9:30; lunch 12:00-1:00; afternoon refreshments)

Where: (** Room change! **)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Wong Auditorium
Building E51 (Tang Center)
70 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA
(http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?mapterms=e51&mapsearch=go)

Webcast:
This event will not be streamed live but will
subsequently become available on the web via
http://mitworld.mit.edu.  Also available via Apple and iTunes at
iTunes U.

Registration:
No advance registration required, no fee - open to all.
RSVP's are appreciated but certainly not required.

Program:

9:00-9:30 Breakfast (Coffee and bagels)
In Foyer outside the Wong Auditorium

9:30-10:00 Opening Remarks:
Robert Berwick (MIT)
Michael Coen (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

10:00-10:45 Lila Gleitman (University of Pennsylvania)
"Human Simulations of Language Learning"

10:45-11:15 Christopher Manning (Stanford University)
"Machine Learning of Language from Distributional
Evidence"

11:15-12:00 Partha Niyogi (University of Chicago)
"The Computational Nature of Language Learning"

12:00-1:00 Lunch

1:00-1:30 Josh Tenenbaum (MIT), Amy Perfors (MIT),
& Terry Regier (University of Chicago)
"Explorations in Language Learnability Using
Probabilistic Grammars and Child-Directed speech"

1:30-2:10 Howard Lasnik & Juan Uriagereka (UMD)
"Structure Dependence, the Rational Learner, and
Putnam's 'Sane Person'"

2:10-3:10 Noam Chomsky (MIT)
"Remarks and Reflections"

3:10-3:30 Coffee Break

3:30-4:00 Sandiway Fong (University of Arizona)
"Statistical Natural Language Parsing: Reliable Models
of Language?"

4:00-4:30 William Sakas & Janet Dean Fodor (CUNY)
"'Ideal' Language Learning and the Psychological
Resource Problem"

15 minute break

4:45-5:45   Panel discussion:
Charles Yang (University of Pennsylvania)
Jean-Roger Vergnaud (USC)
Anna-Maria di Sciullo (University of Québec)
Norbert Hornstein (UMD)
Robert Freiden (Princeton University & Université Paris)


Organizers:
     Robert C. Berwick, MIT, berwick at csail.mit.edu
     Michael Coen, University of Wisconsin-Madison, mhcoen at cs.wisc.edu