ALS 2023 Plenary Speakers

Prof Evan Kidd

Professor Evan Kidd

I was awarded my BBSc(Hons) in 1999 and my PhD (Psycholinguistics) in 2004, both from La Trobe University. Over my career I have worked at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, The University of Manchester, and La Trobe University. I came to the ANU in 2012, originally working in the Research School of Psychology. In 2022 I moved over to SLLL to take up a position as Professor of Linguistics.

My research is in psycholinguistics. I work both on language acquisition (inc. first language acquisition, bilingualism, & second language acquisition) and adult language processing. My recent research has focused on individual differences in language acquisition and use, the relationship between language acquisition and on-line sentence processing in crosslinguistic perspective, and the influence of typological diversity on sentence planning and production. Accordingly, my research group works on several typologically-diverse languages. I also have a keen interest in how language interfaces with other social and cognitive processes. Along these lines, over the past 10 years or so my students and I have been investigating the relationship between language acquisition and symbolic play. 

Keynote abstract: On the importance of linguistic diversity for the cognitive science of language

 

Prof Erich Round

Professor Erich Round

I am a morphologist and phonologist, and modeller of language change and language diversity. I am particularly interested in improving the measurement of linguistic diversity, and developing powerful quantitative tools for its analysis. In my research, I see language diversity and language change as two sides of the same coin, and I work with both.

Currently I am a British Academy Global Professor (2021-24) with the Surrey Morphology Group. Previously I held positions at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (2019-20); as a British Academy Rutherford Fellow at Surrey (2018); as an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow (2015-18); a University of Queensland Arts Faculty Research Fellow (2014); a National Science Foundation Research Associate at Yale (2009-11), and I hold a position as a linguist at the University of Queensland, Australia where I have taught and supervised in the fields of phonology, morphology, Australian languages, language typology and evolutionary linguistics since 2011.

Keynote abstract: Inflection point: From a cognitive spark to astounding linguistic richness

 

Prof Emeritus Elly Van Gelderen

Professor Emeritus Elly Van Gelderen

Elly van Gelderen is a syntactician interested in language change. Her work shows how regular syntactic change (grammaticalization and the linguistic cycle) provides insight in the Faculty of Language. Her 2011 book, The Linguistic Cycle: Language Change and the Language Faculty (Oxford University Press) shows how cyclical change can be accounted for through an economy principle. Her Clause Structure (Cambridge University Press, 2013) examines a number of current debates in theoretical syntax. The history of argument structure, e.g. how unaccusatives and unergatives change in very different directions, is explored in The Diachrony of Meaning (Routledge 2018). Related interests are the evolution of language, biolinguistics, prescriptivism, authorship debates, and code switching. Her most recent book projects are Third Factors in Language Variation and Change (CUP, 2022) and The Linguistic Cycle: Economy and Renewal in Historical Linguistics (Routledge to appear in 2024).

Elly is the author of twelve books and over a hundred articles/chapters in journals such as Linguistic Analysis, Linguistics, Studia Linguistica, Word, and Linguistic Inquiry. She is also the editor of two book series and has herself edited or co-edited eleven books/special issues. Elly has been affiliated with ASU since 1995 (emerita in May 2023).

Keynote abstract: Generative Grammar and Historical Linguistics

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