[lingtalks] TODAY: David Barner (Linguistics Colloquium)

[Klinton Bicknell]

[note that this time slot is later than usual!]

TODAY at 4pm, David Barner (UC San Diego Psychology;
http://ladlab.ucsd.edu/barner.html ) will give a colloquium in the
UCSD Linguistics Department, in AP&M 4301.

:: Abstract ::

Meaning and verification in language acquisition

Humans, unlike other animals, acquire linguistic representations of
objects, sets, and exact cardinalities (e.g., twenty-three). Also, we
alone acquire advanced knowledge of mathematics, including explicit
computations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, etc.
Still, we share with other animals many cognitive capacities,
including non-linguistic systems that support numerical computation.
Recently, some researchers have suggested that human mathematical
abilities, including counting, may be constructed on the basis of
these non-linguistic resources that are shared with other animals -
i.e., that these systems supply a hypothesis space for learning
mathematical concepts. Others have suggested that learning to count
requires special innate representations of exact number. Against both
hypotheses, I will show that exact numerical concepts like "three"
cannot be acquired from non-linguistic systems, and are not innate,
but instead derive from logical representations provided by natural
language. Number words, on this account, are initially acquired like
other quantifiers, using the same resources. Non-linguistic number
systems, act as Kantian "empirical intuitions" used to verify meaning
hypotheses without actually defining them. In support of this, I will
present evidence: (1) that non-linguistic systems lack the
distinctions required by number words, (2) that quantifier acquisition
is tightly linked to counting in development both within English, and
cross-linguistically, and (3) that number words get their exact
meanings via inferential processes normally associated with
quantifiers. I will conclude that no special, innate, hypothesis space
is required for acquiring number words in humans (as some have
proposed), but that early integer knowledge arises from logical
resources normally used to acquire quantifiers like a, some and all.


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For further information about the Linguistics department colloquia
series, including the schedule of future events, please visit
http://ling.ucsd.edu/events/colloquia.html .