UNDERSTANDING LANGUAGE: FORTY YEARS DOWN THE GARDEN PATH

Itziar Laka (UPV/EHU)

Montserrat Sanz (Kobe University of Foreign Studies, Japan)

Pello Salaburu (UPV/EHU)

 

 

PROGRAM 

(Download in pdf)

 

 

            MONDAY, JUNE 28th

 

            9:00 Welcome and Presentation: Itziar Laka and Montserrat Sanz 

            9:15-10:00 Mike Tanenhaus, University of Rochester

            Introduction to the course. On the Cognitive Basis of Linguistic Structures: Themes that have endured.    

 

            SESSION 1. THE CROSSLINGUISTIC BRAIN AND LANGUAGE

            Chair of the session: Itziar Laka

            10:00-11:00 Jacques Mehler SISSA-ISAS CNS, Trieste

            Languages in the infant brain

            11:00-12:00 Manuel Carreiras, Basque Center on Brain, Cognition and Language

            Mechanisms of Agreement 

            12:00-12:30 BREAK

 

            12:30-13:30 Yosef Grodzinsky McGuill University

            Changing perspectives on the functional role of some language regions in the brain

            13:30-16:30 LUNCH

 

            16:30-18:00 ROUND TABLE, GENERAL DISCUSSION:

            The Crosslinguistic Brain and Language

            Theme discussant: Douglass Saddy

            Participants: Tanenhaus, Mehler, Carreiras, Grodzinsky

 

 

 

            JUNE 29th, TUESDAY 

 

            SESSION 2. THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS

            Chair of the session: Montserrat Sanz (Kobe University of Foreign Studies, Japan)

            10:00-11:00 Massimo Piattelli Palmarini, University of Arizona

            Comprehension, production and linearization in a new evolutionary perspective

            11:00-12:00 Ina Bornkessel, University of Marburg, Germany    

            Neurotypology: Modelling cross-linguistic similarities and differences in the neurocognition of language comprehension

            12:00-12:30 BREAK 

 

            12:30-13:30 Edward Stabler UCLA

            Syntax, semantics and pragmatics in incremental interpretation           

            13:30-14:30 Thomas Bever, University of Arizona

            Where do Linguistic Universals come from?

                14:30-16:30  LUNCH

            16:30-18:00 ROUND TABLE, GENERAL DISCUSSION:

            The Evolution of Language and Language Universals 

            Theme discussant: Colin Phillips

            Participants: Piatelli-Palmarini, Saddy, Stabler and Bever

 

 

 

            JUNE 30th, WEDNESDAY 

 

            SESSION 3. THE RELATIONS BETWEEN LANGUAGE PRODUCTION AND PERCEPTION

            Chair of the session: Itziar Laka (University of the Basque Country)

            9:00:10:00 Maryellen C. MacDonald, University of Wisconsin-Madison

            The Production Basis of Language Comprehension:  Evidence from Relative Clauses 

            10:00-11:00 Gary Dell, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

            Implicit learning in the language production system is revealed in speech errors

            11:00-12:00 Luciano Fadiga, Italian Institute of Technology, U. Ferrara

            From Action to Language: Evidence and Speculations

            12:00-12:30 BREAK

 

            12:30-13:30 William Idsardi, University of Maryland

            Statistical generalizations in language behaviors

            13:30-14:30 Charles Lin, Indiana University.

            Down the head-final garden path: Understanding the processing asymmetries of head-final relative clauses

            14:30-16:30  LUNCH

 

            16:30-18:00 ROUND TABLE, GENERAL DISCUSSION:

            The Relations between Language Production and Perception

            Theme discussant: Thomas Bever

            Participants: MacDonald, Dell, Fadiga, Idsardi, Lin

  

 

 

            JULY 1st, THURSDAY

 

            SESSION 4. THE GARDEN PATH TODAY – COMPREHENSION MODELS

            Chair of the Session: Montserrat Sanz

            9:00-10:00 Sonia Kotz, Max Planck Institute for Brain and Cognitive Sciences

            Neural correlates of agreement: locality,  distance, and sentence complexity. 

            10:00-11:00 Gerry Altmann, University of York

             Anticipating the garden path: the horse raced past the barn ate the cake

            11:00-12:00 Michael Tanenhaus University of Rochester

            Real time ambiguity resolution in interactive conversation

            12:00-12:30 BREAK

 

            12:30-13:30 Colin Phillips, University of Maryland

            Grammatical Illusions: Where you see them, where you don't

            13:30-16:30 LUNCH

           

            16:30:17:30 ROUND TABLE AND GENERAL DISCUSSION:

            The Garden Path Today- Comprehension Models

            Theme discussant: Yosef Grodzinsky

            Participants: Kotz, Tanenhaus, Altmann, Stabler, Phillips

            17:30-18:30 CONCLUSIONS AND PREDICTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH:

            Thomas Bever University of Arizona