2012 Program
Event #20
Andrea Moro
I speak, therefore I am The hidden waft: the secrets of language
One of the most surprising aspects of the human code of communication is that words, though lined up one after another, can also relate to each other from a distance, for instance when a noun is separated from its verb. It is like when one closely observes a tapestry and realizes that the dots forming a complex picture are but same-color threads which emerge and plunge back into the fabric and create an unexpected connection between distant parts of the pattern. Knowing the other side of the tapestry, the hidden waft supporting the fabric, is as much as what we can expect from linguistic explanations. One property of this structure is that it makes it possible to build an infinite number of sentences. It is just this infinity that characterizes all human languages and only them, distinguishing us from all other animals.
Andrea Moro, Professor of General Linguistics at the Scuola Univestitaria Superiore IUSS of Pavia, studies the link between human languages structure and the brain. He has been visiting scientist at the MIT and at Harvard University. He is member of the Accademia Pontificia di Arti e Lettere. Planning artificial grammars, he showed that language rules are not just arbitrary conventions but are restricted by the neurobiological architecture of the brain. He published essays in various languages, among them Breve storia del verbo essere (Adelphi, 2006) and Le lingue impossibili (Cortina, 2017). He also debut in fiction with the novel Il segreto di Pietramala (La nave di Teseo, 2018) with which he won the Flaiano Award. At the end of August he will publish the essay La razza e la lingua. Sei lezioni contro il razzismo (La nave di Teseo).
Event #3
Anna Salvo
Sorrow is like a telescope that helps us look into the distance: creatività and suffering
Event #4
Andrea Moro
I speak, therefore I am Like the starry sky: visions of language across the centuries
Event #28
Mauro Agnoletti, Ilaria Borletti Buitoni
Culture, environment, landscape. For a possible, sustainable future
