Recursion conference

[Marianne Mithun]

Conference Call for Papers:

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