Pierre Pica

Pierre Pica (born January 5, 1951), is a research associate (Chargé de Recherche) at the National Center for Scientific Research. He is a specialist in theoretical linguistics and more specifically of comparative syntax. Dr. Pica has concentrated his research on the notion of parameters in linguistic. He has also shown that the respective properties of reflexive pronouns could be derived from their morphological properties. He is currently studying the distinction between the internal and external aspects of the Faculty of language and is also working on a fine grained distinction between competence and performance. Over the last twenty years, Pica has risen to prominence as a result of his work on Binding and Evidentiality. He is also well known for his work on Mundurucu (an indigenous language spoken in Para (Brazil). He is collaborating with Stanislas Dehaene and Elizabeth Spelke in a study of numerical expressions and enumeration in Mundurucu and other amazonian languages.