#426 – Edward Gibson: Human Language, Psycholinguistics, Syntax, Grammar & LLMs

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