Donca Steriade: Searching for the building blocks of language
The most comprehensive survey of rhyme ever made reveals a new possibility for one of the essential units of language.
The rapid rise of human language
New paper suggests people quickly started speaking in a now-familiar form.
Decoding the meaning of language
Linguist Kai von Fintel engages in research at the intersection of science and the humanities.
Could birdsong help us solve stuttering?
New CSAIL genomics work suggests vocalizing birds could tell us more about speech disorders.
Unboxing the Chomsky Archive
A new website offers a glimpse at a lifetime of work, and the chance to support it.
Said and Done for October 2014
Digest of the MIT humanities, arts, and social sciences features a Nobel Prize, a new professorship in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, three new SHASS websites, and more.
MIT linguist Danny Fox named Anshen-Chomsky Professor of Language and Thought
Research illuminates both language and the mind itself.
Essays in English yield information about other languages
Grammatical habits in written English reveal linguistic features of non-native speakers’ languages.
Try, try again? Study says no
Neuroscientists find that trying harder makes it more difficult to learn some aspects of language.
When it comes to numbers, culture counts
In a Bolivian rainforest society, children learn to count just like in the U.S., but on a delayed timetable.
From contemporary syntax to human language’s deep origins
New paper amplifies hypothesis that human language builds on birdsong and speech forms of other primates.
Cold case: A linguistic mystery yields clues in Russian
MIT professor’s new book explains how the quirks of Russian numerals can tell us something deep about the universal properties of grammar.