Blankensee Colloquium 2005

Language Evolution

Cognitive and Cultural Factors

Regine Eckardt

Gerhard Jäger

Tonjes Veenstra

14.-17. July, 2005

Akademie Berlin-Schmöckwitz

Invited Speakers

Creolization

Alain Kihm (CNRS, Paris): The Two Faces of Creole Grammar (Short Abstract)

John McWhorter (University of California at Berkeley): Suboptimal Transmission and Natural Language Grammar: Creole Exceptionalism? (Short Abstract)

Teresa Satterfield (University of Michigan at Ann Arbor): Back to Nature or Nurture: Using Computer Models to Advance Studies on Creole Genesis (Short Abstract)

Evolution

Brady Clark (Northwestern University): Language Change as a Source of Word Order Generalizations (Short Abstract)

Tecumseh Fitch (Sant Andrews, UK): A biological perspective on the evolution of language (Short abstract)

Simon Kirby (University of Edinburgh): The Mechanisms of Adaptive Linguistic Evolution

Manfred Krifka (ZAS and Humboldt University, Berlin): A functional similarity between bimanual coordination and information structure.

Robert van Rooij (University of Amsterdam): Evolution and Stability of Some Semantic Universals (Short Abstract)

Michael Tomasello (MPI EVA Leipzig): Why Don't Apes Point?

History and Typology

Elly van Gelderen (Arizona State University at Tempe): Linguistic Cycles: Grammaticalization as Economy (Short Abstract)

Bernd Heine (University of Cologne) and Hiroyuki Miyashita: Accounting for Auxiliation: A Grammaticalization Approach (Short Abstract)

Richard Janda (Ohio State University): Plausible Reconstructions, or Creatures from a Black Lacuna?: Does Peripatric Differentiation of Biological Taxa AND Language Varieties Make the Earliest Innovators Inaccessible to the Latest Research?

Elizabeth C. Traugott (University of Stanford): On the Relationship between Constructions and Grammaticalization (Short Abstract)

Program

Thur, 14.7.2005

Evening Lecture at the

Berlin Brandenburgische Akademie der

Wissenschaften. Berlin, Jägerstr. 22/23

The Evening Lecture is given by Michael Tomasello (MPI EVA Leipzig): Why Don't Apes Point?

Fri/Sat, 15./16.7.2005

Workshop at the

Akademie Berlin-Schmöckwitz

Wernsdorfer Str. 43

12527 Berlin

For information on how to get there by car please visit the homepage of the Akademie Berlin-Schmöckwitz.

Puublic Transportation: There are two options to get there without a car.

Take the S-Bahn train to the station Eichwalde. From there it is still 5 km - a (nice!) one hour walk or twenty minutes by bike. It is possible to take the bike with you on the S-Bahn train. Here is a route description.
Take the S-Bahn till Grünau. The Akademie Schmöckwitz offers a shuttle service between Grünau and Schmöckwitz. You can order it under the phone number (030) 675 030. It costs 10 Euro for the entire ride, and the shuttle can take up to eight people.
There are more complicated connections that take you directly to the conference site. Here are the details for

Local Host

Manfred Krifka (Humboldt University Berlin)

Registration

Participants at the workshop are very welcome. For reasons of organization, we can only accept registered guests. There is no registration fee. Since the number of places in the lecture hall is limited though, we would ask people who are interested to attend to register here.

We are unfortunately not able to provide accommodation for registered guests.