PRELIMINARY SCHEDULE OF TALKS.
(For registration procedure, see end of message.)
MONDAY, APRIL 1ST, 2.00pm - 6.00pm, PLENARY SESSION.
Jean Aitchison
"On discontinuing the continuity-discontinuity debate"
Kathleen Gibson
"The biocultural brain, mental hierarchies and continuity approaches"
Robbins Burling
"Iconic communication: between gesture calls and language"
Bencie Woll
"Do sign languages tell us anything about the origins of human
language?"
Robert Kluender and Shannon Casey
"The continuity of gesture and language: a case study"
R Q Goodwin
"A functional perspective on the communicative abilities of apes
and children"
TUESDAY APRIL 2ND, 9.00am - 1.00pm, PLENARY SESSION.
Myrna Gopnik
"Genes, grammars and other curiosities"
Paul Fletcher
"Linguistic impairment in a British family: characterisation and
interpretation"
Elizabeth Isaacs, Faraneh Vargha-Khadem, Lucinda Carr, Edward Brett,
Christopher Adams, and Mortimer Mishkin
"Onset of speech after left hemispherectomy in a nine-year old boy"
Robin Dunbar
"Why did language evolve?"
R P Worden
"The evolution of language from social intelligence"
John Locke
"Talking as a precursor to spoken language"
Leslie C. Aiello
"The foundations of human language"
TUESDAY APRIL 2ND, 2.00pm - 6.00pm, PARALLEL SESSION A.
John Batali
"A model of the evolution of grammar"
Pat Healey and Carl Vogel
"Simulated coordination and convergence"
Asif Agha
"A typology of `concepts' for mental development"
Jean Louis Dessalles
"Genetic constraints on the evolution of human communication"
David Dickins and Richard Bentall
"Stimulus equivalence: a laboratory 'knack' or the heart of language?"
Pat Healey
"Natural selection and naturalised semantics"
Gary Marcus
"Two mechanisms of linguistic generalization: an evolutionary
perspective"
TUESDAY APRIL 2ND, 2.00pm - 6.00pm, PARALLEL SESSION B.
Maria Ujhelyi
"Long call structure in apes as a possible precursor for language"
William Noble
"Discovering the symbolic potential of communicative signs"
Ib Ulbaek
"The origin of language and cognition"
Chris Knight
"A 'selfish-gene' solution to the problem of deception"
Camilla Power
"The vocal grooming and gossip theory of language origins:
can cheap signals be reliable?"
Koji Ohnishi
"African origin of classifier-prefixed words in extra-African
languages: new evidence for Ruhlen's monogenesis theory of human languages"
WEDNESDAY APRIL 3RD, 9.00am - 1.00pm, PLENARY SESSION.
Derek Bickerton
"Catastrophic evolution: the case for a single step from
proto-language to language"
Frederick Newmeyer
"On the supposed 'dysfunctionality' of universal grammar: some
evolutionary implications"
Ted Briscoe
"Parsability as a constraint on the evolution of language"
Simon Kirby
"Fitness and the selective adaptation of language"
Christer Johansson
"Transmission of 'language parameters' during the years of the plague"
Robert Berwick
Title to be announced
Philip Lieberman
"On the evolution of the human brain's functional language system"
WEDNESDAY APRIL 3RD, 2.00pm - 6.00pm, PARALLEL SESSION A.
T J Crow
"Sexual selection acting on an X-Y homologous gene as the
mechanism of evolution of language"
Chris McManus
"Handedness, cerebral lateralization and the evolution of
language"
Peter MacNeilage
"Evolution of the mechanism of language output"
Kevin Cohen
Title to be announced
Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy
"Synonymy avoidance, phonology and the origin of syntax"
Marilee Monnot
"What is the adaptive function of maternal 'motherese' speech?"
WEDNESDAY APRIL 3RD, 2.00pm - 6.00pm, PARALLEL SESSION B.
Klaus Kohler
"The development of sound systems in human language"
Jean-Marie Hombert and Egidio Marsico
"Do vowel systems increase in complexity?"
Didier Demolin
"The role of self-organization in the emergence of phonological
systems"
Jean-Marie Hombert
"30,000 years of vowel changes in Australian languages"
Bjorn Lindblom
Title to be announced
Susan Duncan
"The role of rhythm in human language"
THURSDAY APRIL 4TH, 9.00am - 1.00pm, PLENARY SESSION.
Alexander Marshack
"Middle Palaeolithic and earlier Acheulian symbolic materials and
their relevance to the origin and evolution of language"
Iain Davidson
"Language origins and the dispersal of modern humans"
James Steele
"Stone tools and language capacities; a methodology for
apple-and-pear comparisons"
Johanna Nichols
"Linguistic bottlenecks and the human dispersal"
Leon Stassen
"A-languages and B-languages: parameter clusters in the languages
of the world"
Daniel Nettle
"Language and other systems of exchange: the evolution of
linguistic diversity"
CONFERENCE ENDS 1.OOpm, THURSDAY APRIL 4TH.
--------------
OUR SPONSORS
We gratefully acknowledge financial support from:
University of Edinburgh Linguistics Department
University of Edinburgh Interdisciplinary Research Fund
The Times Higher Educational Supplement
University of Edinburgh Northern Scholars Committee
Linguistics Association of Great Britain
Royal Anthropological Institution
Edinburgh International Science Festival
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EVOLUTION OF HUMAN LANGUAGE CONFERENCE
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, APRIL 1-4, 1996
REGISTRATION FORM
Please edit and return to: evoconf@ling.ed.ac.uk
Title: _____________________________________________________
Name: _____________________________________________________
Affiliation (if any): ________________________________________
Contact Address: _____________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Vegetarian or other dietary requirements: ____________________
ALL COSTS IN UK POUNDS STERLING (insert amounts below)
Conference Fee:* _________
75.00, non-student delegates
40.00, students (with copy of student ID)
Discounts available to a maximum
of 15 students
*Includes lunch April 2 and 3, afternoon tea
and morning coffee April 1-4, all conference
facilities, materials & administration costs
Number of nights' accomodation required: _____
Type of accomodation required (1-3): _____
Type 1: single room, shared facilities, 25.00/night
Type 2: double room, shared facilities, 36.00/night
Type 3: double room, en-suite facilities, 59.00/night
Price includes accomodation at Pollock Halls and
full Scottish breakfast.
Total accomodation costs: _________
Abstract booklet only (price 5.00): _________
TOTAL ALL COSTS: _________
FOREIGN EXCHANGE FEE (See *note below) _________
GRAND TOTAL _________
Payment is due by March 1st. (10% surcharge for late payment). Please
send cheques or money orders in POUNDS STERLING* to:
Evolution of Human Language Conference
Dept. of Linguistics
University of Edinburgh
Adam Ferguson Building
40 George Square
Edinburgh
EH9 8LL
Please make cheques payable to "Evolution Conference 96"
*For payment in other currencies, please add the equivalent of 10
pounds sterling to the "TOTAL ALL COSTS" above.