PhD fellowship: Memory Glass in Language Evolution
Applications are invited - with deadline August 27, 2024 - for
a CNS studentship with the option of working in limbo, with
recently arrived postdoc Hediye Yarahmadi. The project is based
on our research
and on extensive
data on language parameters collected by Longobardi and
collaborators, which suggest that language diversity may reflect
the disordered freezing dynamics that in a spin glass lead to a
multiplicity of ground states. In a simplified model, vectors of
binary syntactic parameters interact via strong asymmetric
logical implications and weak partly symmetric influences, which
can produce critical slowing down through a novel mechanism of
percolated freezing.
Candidates should be keen
to develop new mathematical and computational approaches
and enjoy learning about issues and narratives in scientific
communities other than theirs. Applications online,
inquiries by e-mail.
Liminar meetings
resumed...
 (Luca Viviani, 1998) |
After the COVID-19 pandemic had confined us
to e-venues, we have had the opportunity to experience
again the pleasure of meeting in person, including at Mind the Gap,
which brought us across multiple disciplinary boundaries,
to look at space
with others' eyes. Ears. Noses. Thanks Tereza |
 and Julie |
...amidst unconfirmed reports of life beyond limbo
 |
No beginning and no end
Our research lines are a confusing web of recurrent themes feeding back on each other. The categorization into webpages is just meant to affect a sense of direction and perspective. Which you may lose, when coming to visit us in Trieste. Our campus at Sanatorio Santorio Santorio will anyway offer you a view of the gulf, as well as test your alliterative capacities.
Want to read an overview of our evolutionary perspective?
Try this chapter
from the Les Houches 2003 summer
school.
Want to be confused by our research strategies? This PowerPoint
presentation (from December, 2004) should leave you perplexed.
Want to understand limbo psychodynamics?
It is complicated, but the Piaroa
provide an inspiring cultural reference.
Coordinates
We are located in the former Santorio Hospital, at the edge of the Carso overlooking Trieste. It can be reached with the Tram de Opcina (when it operates, which is never) or with bus 38, both from piazza Oberdan.From days bygone:
