We are very happy to announce the next talk in the GK Colloquium, which will take place on Tuesday, April 16, 4 – 6 pm in SH 0.104.
Tom Roeper (University of Massachusetts) will present “How abstract are real Mental Representations?
Searching for the right formulation of recursion in language and Math if they emerge together on the developmental path.”.
Abstract: Recent work in Minimalism (Chomsky (2013)) has proposed definitions of recursion that are abstract: word order is captured by Externalization, and self-embedding by Indirect Recursion of abstract categories. These formulations can also capture both recursive adjective formation and the recursive indirect embedding of the 1-9 system among multipliers of ten, hundred and thousand.
Several new experiments in English and Chinese provide Initial evidence that there are empirical correlations in children between 4-7 years between these stages and the emergence of recursion in possessives and Adjective phrases up to four levels (big little big little boxes).
You are cordially invited!