The biolinguistic thesis states that language is a biological system internal to an individual of the species Homo sapiens sapiens for generating structured linguistic expressions over a potentially unbounded range; the design of the system is determined by a genetic endowment, external stimuli, and natural laws. With such an expansive scope, the thesis can be thoroughly explored only through interdisciplinary enterprises—the organization of which is the desideratum of the Cambridge Biolinguistics Initiative (CBI). We welcome you to participate in this most exciting endeavor. (Continue this manifesto.)

26 January 2012

Meeting Monday 24th October

For this session, we met to examine poverty of the stimulus arguments in generative grammar. In particular, we examined two recent papers on the topic - one by Perfors, Tenenbaum and Regier, and another by Berwick, Pietroski, Yankama and Chomsky, which differ in their support of the argument. Additionally, we began the session with a consideration of Plato's dialogue The Meno, which is perhaps the first argument from the Poverty of the Stimulus (thanks to Theresa Biberauer, Iain Mobbs and Ian Roberts for suggesting these readings).

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