Conference
Dates: September 18-20, 2003
Funded by: NIMH, NICHHD,
& JHU IGERT Program, NSF
The Conference will address
the following specific questions:
- What is the range of
linguistic distinctions that are made across languages, and how are these
related to underlying spatial-linguistic universals?
- What is the range of
pre-linguistic distinctions that are mastered by human infants, and by other
species, and how might these be related to the putative linguistic universals?
- What is the nature of
spatial language acquisition--which distinctions are acquired early, and which
late, and do the early-acquired distinctions show any biases that could reflect
linguistic universals? Once acquired, do these distinctions have effects on
non-linguistic spatial representations?
- How can we model learning
of spatial language, either as an independent space, or using non-linguistic
universals as a base upon which to build spatial language?
Organizers: Barbara
Landau, Lila R. Gleitman, Laura Carlson, and Emile van der Zee