Conference on Bootstrapping from Speech to Syntax, Providence, RI, January 15-17, 1993

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ABSTRACT Acquiring the syntactic code that mediates between sound and meaning is one of the primary tasks that children face in learning language. In inducing such a code children must use information available in the speech that they hear and the events that they witness in combination with preprogrammed constraints on syntactic hypotheses. The process of induction has come to be called "bootstrapping" in the acquisition literature. Previously, the speech streem has been largely overlooked as a potential source of information about linguistic structure. Recently, however, an increasing number of scholars in a range of disciplines have begun to investigate the relationship between input speech and the acquisition of syntax. These researchers include theoretical and computational linguists, acousticians, speech pathologists, and psychologists and cognitive scientists specializing in speech perception and language acquisition. Unfortunately, most of these researchers work in relative isolation, having little opportunity for contact with those from other disciplines. It is time to bring them together, that they might share insights and chart directions for future research in this vitally important new area of research. PIs Morgan and Demuth are therefore organizing a working conference on bootstrapping from speech to syntax. The proceedings of the conference will be published.