Synchronic Versus Diachronic Explanation and the Nature of the Language Faculty
Synchronic Versus Diachronic Explanation and the Nature of the Language Faculty
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共时性与历时性解释以及语言能力的本质
DOI：
10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011415-040735
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发表时间：
2016
影响因子：
1
通讯作者：
S. Anderson
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
S. Anderson
随着共时理论在20世纪的兴起，世纪的语言结构概念被诉诸语言史来解释，这种概念在很大程度上被抛弃了，但最近又重新受到重视。传统的语言生成理论倾向于将跨语言的语法归因于人类语言能力对可能语法类别的限制，但一些学者认为这往往是错误的：不存在（或者至少是很少的）语言的真实的实质性共性，而所讨论的语法规则产生于历时变化的共同路径，这些路径的基础是认知可及语法集的定义属性之外的因素。这篇评论调查证据的立场，主要是在语音，但也在形态和句法。我认为，在音韵学，目前没有令人信服地证明实质性的普遍性管理的一套可能的语法，我们发现的概括应归因于偶然的历史发展和偏见的学习算法，相关的可用数据的语法学习者获得的组合。在形态和句法方面，我认为一些明显的概括确实是历时变化而不是共时约束的产物。
The nineteenth-century conception that linguistic structure was to be explained by recourse to the histories of languages was largely abandoned with the rise of synchronic theories in the twentieth century, but has recently returned to prominence. Whereas traditional generative theories of language have tended to attribute crosslinguistic regularities to constraints imposed on the class of possible grammars by the human Language Faculty, some scholars have argued that this is often a mistake: that there are no (or at least very few) real substantive universals of language, and that the regularities in question arise from common paths of diachronic change having their basis in factors outside of the defining properties of the set of cognitively accessible grammars. This review surveys evidence for that position, primarily in phonology but also in morphology and syntax. I argue that in phonology, there are at present no convincingly demonstrated substantive universals governing the set of possible regularities, and that the generalizations we find should be attributed to a combination of contingent historical developments and biases in the learning algorithm that relates available data to the grammars learners acquire. In morphology and syntax, I argue that some apparent generalizations are indeed the product of diachronic change rather than synchronic constraint.