Decoding the meaning of language
How is it possible that simple acoustic vibrations, hand gestures, and even ink patterns can give one person access to the thoughts of someone else? This is the central question of linguistics, and one that has fascinated Kai von Fintel throughout his career. “We put these signals in the world, and others can read our mind to some extent,” says von Fintel, a professor of linguistics and associate dean of MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS). “I find that a baffling phenomenon — why not try to figure that out?” To address this “insurmountably complex” question, von Fintel and others in the field take a scientific approach. “We’re trying to find patterns in data, making hypotheses, throwing more data at it and seeing how it holds up,” he says. “We look at facts to distinguish what we can understand versus what we can’t.” An intellectual home As a teenager growing up in...