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SUMMARY:An embodied model of clause syntax - Alistair Knott\, Dept of Comp
 uter Science\, University of Otago\, New Zealand
DTSTART:20141208T140000Z
DTEND:20141208T150000Z
UID:TALK56573@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Tamara Polajnar
DESCRIPTION:Embodied models of language posit that the human language facu
 lty somehow recruits the sensory and/or motor mechanisms by which we inter
 act with the physical world. This claim is normally made in the field of l
 exical semantics - for instance in proposals that the meanings of action v
 erbs are represented by action representations in the motor system. In my 
 talk\, I'll propose a version of the claim in the domain of syntax: I will
  argue that the syntactic structure of a sentence reporting a concrete epi
 sode in the world can be interpreted - at least in part - as a description
  of the sensorimotor processes through which this episode was perceived. \
 n\nThe talk will summarise the argument I made in a recent book (Sensorimo
 tor Cognition and Natural Language Syntax\, MIT Press 2012). I will focus 
 on a single concrete episode\, in which a man grasps a cup. I'll first int
 roduce a model of the sensorimotor processes through which this episode is
  perceived\, derived from recent research in neuroscience. Then I'll intro
 duce a model of the syntax of transitive sentences like 'The man grabbed a
  cup'\, and its equivalents in other languages\, drawing on a Minimalist n
 otion of Logical Form (LF). Then I'll argue that there are interesting str
 uctural similarities between these independently-developed models\, which 
 run deep enough to support the claim that LF structures encode aspects of 
 sensorimotor processing.  \n
LOCATION:FW26\, Computer Laboratory
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