[PLing] Invitation: Peter Culicover @CEU

[Eva Wittenberg]

Dear All,

The CEU Language Comprehension Lab invites you to the following talk at Central European University:

Speaker: Peter Culicover


Constructional Reflections

My overarching goal is to seek explanations of why human languages are the way they are. A constructional approach sharpens this question along the following lines. (i) Where do constructions come from? (ii) Why do constructions take the form that they have? (iii) What kinds of constructions exist in natural language? (iv) Why are some logically possible constructions (quasi-)universal, and others not, and others apparently non-existent?

In past work I have offered a range of assumptions, intuitions, and speculations about these questions. In this talk I will explore some of them, focusing on the possible empirical consequences of three ideas: (i) The Force. which promotes (or ‘pushes for’) the expression of all aspects of meaning using linguistic form. (ii) Economy, the assumption that grammars are organized to (more-or-less) efficiently express aspects of meaning, especially the conceptual core. (iii) The Bottleneck, which severely restricts the range of meanings that can be encoded in a single linguistic expression.


Date: November 6th, 2025

Time: 9:30-10:30am
Venue: Language Comprehension Lab, room D513*
              Central European University, Quellenstr. 51, 1100 Vienna



*Anyone not affiliated with CEU wishing to attend must RSVP to ballaa at ceu.edu to get access to the lab. Please arrive about 10-15 minutes before the talk to receive your access card!


Eva Wittenberg

lcl.ceu.edu<http://lcl.ceu.edu>

Department of Cognitive Science
Central European University
Quellenstr. 51, 1100 Wien, Austria
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