Henning Andersen at the University of Calgary

	Visit sponsored by University of Calgary Research Services, the departments of Germanic, Slavic and East Asian Studies and Linguistics, the Faculty of Humanities and the Language Research Centre Henning Andersen is professor emeritus of Slavic linguistics at the University of California, Los Angeles and member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. His degrees are from the University of British Columbia and Harvard University. He has written on synchronic and diachronic phonology, morphophonemics, and morphology as well as the dialectology and comparative reconstruction of the Slavic languages. Several of his publications (e.g. Actualization (2001)) lay out a theory of language change that recognizes the central role of synchronic usage norms in language history.
	WEDNESDAY, 2 DECEMBER 2009
10:00 –10:50	Video-conference: Lecture for U of C and University of Toronto Russian undergraduates on the rationality of Russian numeral syntax. Location: Biological Sciences Building (BI), 5^th floor, room 587
	THURSDAY 3 DECEMBER 2009
15:00 – 16:30	LRC hosts H. Andersen’s lecture Principles of linguistic change as part of its Fall Speaker Series. Location: Craigie Hall D (CHD), 4^th floor, room 420
	ABSTRACT Since Chomsky’s work in the 1960s* the notion of creativity has been recognized by many linguists as central to an understanding of the role of universal grammar. Among anthropological linguists and sociolinguists, whose primary focus is the use of language in communication, creativity is widely viewed as a characteristic of our species that transcends universal grammar. Be this as it may, historical linguists have long been content with an explanatory framework that operates with such notions as natural phonetic change, false analogies, and imperfect learning. One might wonder how the recognition of human creativity would change this traditional view of language change. In this presentation I will offer a typology of linguistic innovations that pays attention to speakers’ and hearers’ contributions in the transmission of language. This perspective makes it reasonable to suggest that the creative capacity of humans is essential for the transmission of language, that is, not just for linguistic change, but for the historical continuity that predominates in traditions of speaking. ________________ E.g. Aspects* (1964). Also: “Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation.” (For reasons of state, 1973)
	FRIDAY 4 DECEMBER 2009
13:00 – 13:50	Video-conference: Lecture for U of C and University of Toronto Russian undergraduates on birchbark texts as a window on daily life in the Russian Middle Ages. Location: Biological Sciences Building (BI), 5^th floor, room 587

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