About Madhumanti Datta

Madhumanti has recently graduated from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles with a PhD in Linguistics. Her research area is the syntax of human languages, focussing on what possible and impossible structures in human language tell us about how linguistic structures are built, how meaning is represented and about the knowledge of grammar that speakers of a language intuitively possess. She is interested in issues surrounding language, both from the social and cultural perspective and from the biological perspective of language as a window into human cognition.

Madhumanti Datta completed her PhD in Linguistics from the University of Southern California, USA. Her primary research area is the syntax of human languages, focussing on what possible and impossible structures in human language tell us about how linguistic structures are built, how meaning is represented and about the knowledge of grammar that speakers of a language intuitively possess. She is interested in issues surrounding language, both from the social and cultural perspective and from the biological perspective of language as a window into human cognition.

NBN Episodes hosted by Madhumanti:

Harry van der Hulst, "A Mind for Language: An Introduction to the Innateness Debate" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

January 20, 2024

A Mind for Language

Harry van der Hulst
Hosted by Madhumanti Datta

How does human language arise in the mind? To what extent is it innate, or something that is learned? How do these factors interact? The questions s…

Jonathan Downs, "Discovery at Rosetta: Revealing Ancient Egypt" (American University in Cairo Press, 2020)

October 15, 2023

Discovery at Rosetta

Jonathan Downs
Hosted by Madhumanti Datta

In 1798, young French general Napoleon Bonaparte entered Egypt with a veteran army and a specialist group of savants—scientists, engineers, and artist…