37.3347, FYI: CERNAI Research Seminar, Oct 21, Pavia: Vittoria Dentella, “The Shape of AI: From Grammar to Cognition”

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-3347. Thu Oct 15 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.3347, FYI: CERNAI Research Seminar, Oct 21, Pavia: Vittoria Dentella, “The Shape of AI: From Grammar to Cognition”

Moderator: Steven Moran (linguist at linguistlist.org)
Managing Editor: Valeriia Vyshnevetska
Team: Helen Aristar-Dry, Daniel Swanson
Jobs: jobs at linguistlist.org | Conferences: callconf at linguistlist.org | Pubs: pubs at linguistlist.org

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

Editor for this issue: Daniel Swanson <daniel at linguistlist.org>

================================================================


Date: 15-Oct-2026
From: Federico Cella [federico.cella at unipv.it]
Subject: CERNAI Research Seminar, Oct 21, Pavia: Vittoria Dentella, “The Shape of AI: From Grammar to Cognition”


The Center for Reasoning, Normativity and AI (CERNAI) at the
University of Pavia is pleased to announce the next talk in the CERNAI
Research Seminars, GENERIC Series.
Speaker: Vittoria Dentella (University of Pavia)
Title: The shape of AI: From grammar to cognition
Date and time: October 21, 2026, 15:30-17:00
Venue: Sala Lauree, Department of Law, University of Pavia, Corso
Strada Nuova 65, Pavia, Italy
Online: a Zoom link is available upon request
Abstract
LLMs’ progressive gains in performance across Natural Language
Processing applications and tasks has sparked an interest towards
characterizing the underlying knowledge that they encode and which
allows for such performance to surface. Such knowledge is often
described using vocabulary that refers to human-like linguistic
capabilities. More specifically, LLMs have been attributed with
human-like linguistic competence both over grammar and over
form-meaning mappings. However, a closer look at LLMs’ performance in
language tasks reveals fundamental shortcomings which cast doubt on
the human-likeness of the knowledge that they encode. In this talk, I
present evidence that challenges the attribution of human-like
competence to LLMs, and I discuss the importance of adopting high
standards for LLM evaluations.
Everyone is welcome. For more information, or to request the Zoom
link, visit https://generic.unipv.it/ or write to generic at unipv.it.

Linguistic Field(s): Computational Linguistics
                     General Linguistics




------------------------------------------------------------------------------

********************** LINGUIST List Support ***********************
Please consider donating to the Linguist List, a U.S. 501(c)(3) not for profit organization:

https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=87C2AXTVC4PP8

LINGUIST List is supported by the following publishers:

Australian Linguistics Society https://als.asn.au/Home

Bloomsbury Publishing http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/

Cambridge University Press http://www.cambridge.org/linguistics

Cascadilla Press http://www.cascadilla.com/

De Gruyter Brill https://www.degruyterbrill.com/?changeLang=en

Edinburgh University Press http://www.edinburghuniversitypress.com

European Language Resources Association (ELRA) http://www.elra.info

John Benjamins http://www.benjamins.com/

Language Science Press http://langsci-press.org

MDPI Languages https://www.mdpi.com/journal/languages

MIT Press http://mitpress.mit.edu/

Multilingual Matters http://www.multilingual-matters.com/

Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG http://www.narr.de/

Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics / Landelijke (LOT) http://www.lotpublications.nl/

Peter Lang AG http://www.peterlang.com

SIL International Publications http://www.sil.org/resources/publications

University of Toronto Press https://utppublishing.com


----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-37-3347
----------------------------------------------------------