The talk will take place on Thursday, 4 June 2026, from 5:30 pm to approx. 7:00 pm at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University (nám. Jana Palacha 1/2, Prague 1, room P200).

Abstract

Suppose that your language production system and your language comprehension system are separate. If you then acquire language production by mimicking other people’s production, and language comprehension by mimicking other people’s comprehension, the noise in the transmission channel will inevitably eventually lead to massive merger of linguistic categories over the generations, thus breaking down communication. If, instead, you use the same linguistic knowledge (constraints or connection weights) for your production process as for your comprehension processes, and you optimize your production and comprehension together, linguistic categories will sharpen over the generations, with low variation between and within categories.

Prof Boersma will show computer simulations from the syntax–semantics interface (Principle A leads to Principle B), the semantics–pragmatics interface (the emergence of Grice’s maxim of quantity), and the phonetics–phonology interface (the emergence of auditory separation within vowel inventories).