Call Deadline: 15 November 2014
Event Location: Pavia, Italy
The conference is organized by the International Network in Biolinguistics and NeTS Center at IUSS Pavia, Italy.
The conference will be held on January 26 and 27 and will be followed on the 28 by a dedicated session to NeTS results and work in progress. The conference will be transmitted via satellite.
This conference aims to contribute to our understanding of the human capacity for language, understood as a generative procedure that relates sounds and meanings via syntax. While theoretical hypotheses about this relation are part of the generative enterprise since its beginnings, recent developments address the issue in terms of the properties of the 'language organ'. Different hypotheses about the properties of the generative procedure, giving rise to the discrete infinity of language, are under discussion, and their connection with biology is open to important cross-disciplinary work. Advances have been made in human-animal studies to differentiate human language from animal communication. Contributions from neurosciences also point to the exclusive properties of the human brain for language. Studies in genetically based language impairments also contribute to the understanding of the properties of the language organ.
Invited speaker: Ken Wexler, MIT
Call for Papers:
We invite contributions presenting theoretical and experimental investigations on the properties of the Language Faculty relating language to its biological basis.
Abstracts should not exceed two pages, including data, references and diagrams. Abstracts should be typed in at least 11-point font, with one-inch margins (letter-size; 8'' 1/2 by 11'' or A4) and a maximum of 50 lines of text per page. Abstracts must be anonymous and submissions are limited to 2 per author, at least one of which is co-authored.
Only electronic submissions will be accepted. Please submit your abstract using the EasyAbs link that will be posted on the LinguistList by October 31.