A Journey from Mathematics to Language Exploration

Edward Gibson is a psycholinguistics professor at MIT and heads the MIT Language Lab. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
– Yahoo Finance: https://yahoofinance.com
– Listening: https://listening.com/lex and use code LEX to get one month free
– Policygenius: https://policygenius.com/lex
– Shopify: https://shopify.com/lex to get $1 per month trial
– Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/lex to get special savings

Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/edward-gibson-transcript

EPISODE LINKS:
Edward’s X: https://x.com/LanguageMIT
TedLab: https://tedlab.mit.edu/
Edward’s Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4FsWE64AAAAJ
TedLab’s YouTube: https://youtube.com/@Tedlab-MIT

PODCAST INFO:
Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8
RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/
YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman
YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips

SUPPORT & CONNECT:
– Check out the sponsors above, it’s the best way to support this podcast
– Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman
– Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman
– Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman
– LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman
– Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman
– Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman

OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(10:53) – Human language
(14:59) – Generalizations in language
(20:46) – Dependency grammar
(30:45) – Morphology
(39:20) – Evolution of languages
(42:40) – Noam Chomsky
(1:26:46) – Thinking and language
(1:40:16) – LLMs
(1:53:14) – Center embedding
(2:19:42) – Learning a new language
(2:23:34) – Nature vs nurture
(2:30:10) – Culture and language
(2:44:38) – Universal language
(2:49:01) – Language translation
(2:52:16) – Animal communication