[CL+NLP Lunch] next Tuesday at 12:30: Charles Kemp on Cross-Cultural Lexical Semantics

[Nathan Schneider]

All,

We are excited to announce this month's CL+NLP Lunch:

*Tuesday, March 15, 12:30pm*
NSH 3305
Food will be provided.

*Charles Kemp*
Professor, CMU Psychology

*Cross-Cultural Lexical Semantics: The Case of Kinship*

*Abstract:*
Given any medium-sized set of items, the number of ways to organize these
items into categories is vast. What are the principles that explain which
categories humans choose to name? I will present a computational approach to
lexical semantics and will apply it to the domain of kinship. The account is
based on two fundamental principles: good systems of categories are simple,
and they enable informative communication. I will show that kinship
terminologies in the world's languages achieve a near-optimal tradeoff
between these competing principles. I will also suggest that this
general-purpose account helps to explain several specific constraints on kin
classification proposed by previous researchers.

(joint work with Terry Regier)

*Bio:*
Charles Kemp is based in the psychology department and works on
probabilistic models of human learning and reasoning. Among other topics he
is interested in the extent to which human language qualifies as a
near-optimal communication system.


Cheers,
Nathan & Ben
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