V rámci meziinstitucionální spolupráce (mezi Univerzitou Karlovou a College de France) přijede na FF UK prof. Luigi Rizzi a prosloví dvě přednášky.
Přednáška 1 (v angličtině)
On the growth of syntactic structures in the child.
Monday, 27th April 2026, 12:30 | Room P018
Human language differs from animal communication systems in its “…almost infinitely larger power of associating together the most diversified sounds and ideas” (C.Darwin, The Descent of Man, 1871). An old tradition, going back at least to Galileo and Descartes, and developed in detail by generative grammar, identifies the key property of this power in the combinatorial system, recursive syntax.
The basic building block of syntax may be extremely simple (Merge), if the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995) is on the right track. Nevertheless, the generated structures are complex objects, as a consequence of recursion and of the rich and diversified lexical specifications that the system must satisfy. The cartography of syntactic structures (Cinque & Rizzi 2010, Rizzi 2021, Rizzi to appear, Wolfe, ed. to appear) is a research program which focuses on capturing the complexity of structural representations, while at the same time trying to reconcile it with the simplicity of the underlying mechanisms.
The complexity of syntactic structures raises questions for language acquisition: how and when are complex syntactic configurations acquired by the child? A traditional assumption is that children “start small”, with very simple sentences, which get progressively more complex with development (e.g., Radford 1990). But what defines “simple” and “complex” exactly? In Friedmann, Belletti, Rizzi (2021) we have addressed these issues by fully exploiting rich cartographic representations. The “Growing Trees” approach puts forth the hypothesis that the acquisition of the syntactic tree proceeds in a bottom-up fashion: the child starts with the lower zones of the tree, and higher zones grow on top of lower zones till the completion of the cartographic tree. In this talk I would like to briefly illustrate the cartographic program, and focus on cross-linguistic analyses based in the Growing Trees idea (Belletti, Rizzi, Friedmann to appear).
References:
- Belletti, A., L. Rizzi, N. Friedmann (to appear) . Growing trees in child grammars: Cartography as an analytic tool for syntactic development. In Wolfe, ed.,(to appear)
- Chomsky, N. (1995) The Minimalist Program. MIT Press, Cambridge.MA.
- Cinque, G. & L. Rizzi (2010) G. Cinque, L. Rizzi, The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Analysis, edited by B. Heine and H. Narrog. Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York, 2010, pp. 51-65.
- Friedmann, N., A. Belletti, L. Rizzi (2021) Growing trees: The acquisition of the left periphery. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 6(1): 131. 1–38. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.5877
- Radford, A. (1990) Syntactic Theory and the Acquisition of English Syntax. Blackwell, Oxford.
- Rizzi, L. (2021) Complexité des structures linguistiques, simplicité des mécanismes du langage, Leçon inaugurale, Collège de France – Fayard, Paris. English translation: Complexity of Linguistic Structures, Simplicity of Language Mechanisms, 2024. OpenEdition Books, Collège de France, DOI : 10.4000/books.cdf.16006
- Rizzi, L. (to appear) Description and Explanation in the Left Periphery: Some results, Problems, and Prospects. In Wolfe, ed.,(to appear)
- Wolfe, S., ed. (to appear) The Oxford Handbook of Syntactic Cartography. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Přednáška 2 (v italštině)
La cartografia sintattica e le strutture topicali e focali in italiano ed in altre lingue
Tuesday, 28th April 2026, 14:10 | Room C244
La cartografia sintattica e le strutture topicali e focali in italiano ed in altre lingue.
La sintassi delle lingue naturali ci consente di creare un numero illimitato di frasi, capaci di esprimere “i nostri più reconditi pensieri” (Galileo Galilei). Da oltre trent’anni, il programma cartografico studia la complessità delle strutture sintattiche disegnando mappe il più possibile precise e dettagliate delle diverse zone della frase e dei sintagmi maggiori (Cinque & Rizzi 2010, Rizzi & Cinque 2016, Rizzi 2021, Wolfe, ed., in stampa).
In questa presentazione vorrei dare una caratterizzazione generale degli studi cartografici, indicandone le finalità, i risultati, le problematiche.
Vorrei quindi affrontare lo studio della periferia iniziale della frase (le “periferia sinistra”, o sistema del complementatore), soffermandomi in particolare sulle proprietà delle strutture topicali e focali. Tali strutture giocano un ruolo importante all’interfaccia tra la morfosintassi della frase e l’organizzazione del discorso e degli scambi conversazionali. Illustrerò alcune caratteristiche di questo sistema in italiano, introducendo anche elementi comparativi con altre lingue indoeuropee ed africane, al fine di cercare di individuare le proprietà generali del sistema del complementatore e le caratteristiche variabili tra le lingue.
Riferimenti:
- Cinque, G. & L. Rizzi (2010) The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Analysis, edited by B. Heine and H. Narrog. Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York, 2010, pp. 51-65.
- Rizzi, L. and G. Cinque. 2016. Functional categories and syntactic theory. Annual Review of Linguistics, 2, 2016, pp. 139-163.
- Rizzi, L. (2021) Complexité des structures linguistiques, simplicité des mécanismes du langage, Leçon inaugurale, 2021, Collège de France, Paris. English translation: Complexity of Linguistic Structures, Simplicity of Language Mechanisms, 2024. OpenEdition Books, Collège de France, DOI : 10.4000/books.cdf.16006
- Wolfe, S., ed. (in stampa) The Oxford Handbook of Syntactic Cartography. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Podrobnosti události
- Začátek události
- 27. 4. 2026 0:00
- Konec události
- 28. 4. 2026 0:00
- Místo konání
- FF UK (různé místnosti)
- Organizátor
- Radek Šimík, Pavel Štichauer
- Typ události
- Pro zaměstnance
- Přílohy
- Plakát
