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Critical/Foundational support for this service is provided by the Leon Levy Foundation as part of the Shelby White & Leon Levy Archive Initiative at the American Museum of Natural History Library
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Asset ID
Berwick in Kaufmann_3-4-720.mp4
Title
Songs to syntax: cognition, computation, and the origin of language; 83rd annual James Arthur Lecture on the Evolution of the Human Brain
Description
MIT Professor Robert Berwick discusses the evolution of human language and specifically how underlying syntax arose via the introduction of a single, surprisingly simple operation that "glues" words and sentence parts together. The relation of this simple syntax to human sensory-motor and thought systems reveals language to be asymmetric in design. While it precisely matches the representations required for inner mental thought, it also poses computational difficulties for understanding sentences, as everyday experience demonstrates. Despite this mismatch, one can show that syntax leads directly to the rich cognitive array that marks us as a symbolic species, including mathematics, music, etc.
Date
2013-03-04
Agent (Role)
American Museum of Natural History
(
Producer
),
Berwick, Robert C.
(
Contributor
)
City Town
New York
Country
United States
Repository
American Museum of Natural History
Rights statement
Information on rights available at repository.
Is Part Of
James Arthur Lecture on the Evolution of the Human Brain