Linguistic Evolution Through Language Acquisition: Learning, bottlenecks and the evolution of recursive syntax
Linguistic Evolution Through Language Acquisition: Learning, bottlenecks and the evolution of recursive syntax
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通过语言习得的语言进化：学习、瓶颈和递归语法的进化
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发表时间：
2002
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通讯作者：
S. Kirby
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作者：
S. Kirby
人类语言是一种独特的自然交流系统，原因有二。1首先，语言中从意义到符号的映射具有任何其他动物的交流系统所没有的结构特性。特别是，语法使我们能够通过组合性和递归的双重工具产生无限范围的表达式。复合性在这里被定义为这样一种性质，即“表达的意义是其各部分的意义以及它们组合在一起的方式的单调函数”。(Cann 1993：4)递归是“一个句子的一个成分支配同一句法范畴的另一个实例的现象”。。。递归是自然语言中的句子数量通常被认为是无限的主要原因“(Trask1993：229-230)。再加上递归的组合性，这就是为什么这组无限的句子可以用来表达不同的意思。其次，至少这种映射的部分内容是儿童通过观察他人的语言使用而学会的。这似乎并不适用于大多数，也许所有的动物交流(参见《奥列芬特》这一卷中的评论)。在这一章中，我正式研究了人类语言的这两个独特属性之间的相互作用：语言的学习方式和句法结构。
Human language is a unique natural communication system for two reasons.1 Firstly, the mapping from meanings to signals in language has structural properties that are not found in any other animal’s communication systems. In particular, syntax gives us the ability to produce an infinite range of expressions through the dual tools of compositionality and recursion. Compositionality is defined here as the property whereby “the meaning of an expression is a monotonic function of the meaning of its parts and the way they are put together.” (Cann 1993:4) Recursion is “the phenomenon by which a constituent of a sentence dominates another instance of the same syntactic category . . . recursion is the principle reason that the number of sentences in a natural language is normally taken to be infinite” (Trask 1993:229-230). Together with recursion‘ compositionality is the reason that this infinite set of sentences can be used to express different meanings. Secondly, at least some of the content of this mapping is learned by children through observation of others’ use of language. This seems not to be true of most, maybe all, of animal communication (see review in Oliphant, this volume). In this chapter I formally investigate the interaction of these two unique properties of human language: the way it is learned and its syntactic structure.