Events 
| Lecture |
| Donnerstag, 30.11.2006 16:00 - 18:00 | |
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Traditionally, the principle of economy has been considered a secondary principle in mainstream linguistics. Here we will argue that economy is a crucial factor for explaining some universal properties of human language such as Zipf's law for word frequencies or the absence of crossings of syntactic dependencies. We will also argue that economy could be even the reason why human language originated, suggesting that the principle of economy cannot be considered an improvement over existent views of language but part of the core of any solid theory of language. Ramon Ferrer i Cancho has been studying language through the eyes of physics for the last ten years. He has contributed to explaining linguistic universals such as Zipf's law for word frequencies. His main research interests are information and network theory and their applications to language and the communication systems of other species. How the principle of economy shapes language LocationC6 - 120, Bielefeld University (Bielefeld University) |
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