Doctoral Dissertation Research: Optionality in Comparative Inflection

博士论文研究：比较词形变化中的选择性

• 批准号: 0617710
• 负责人: Farrell Ackerman
• 金额: $ 0.84万
• 依托单位: University of California-San Diego
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-07-01 至 2008-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0617710&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Optionality; Comparative

Although cognitive scientists over the past hundred years have greatly expanded our knowledge of language, the quintessential human adaptation, we are still quite far from solid, complete answers to most of the fundamental questions in the field: e.g., how are languages learned, and how are they represented and processed in the mind? Under the direction of Dr. Farrell Ackerman, Mr. Jeremy Boyd will address these vital questions by focusing on a small, well-defined area of English grammar: the alternation that occurs for some adjectives in the comparative between "-er" and "more" forms, e.g. "angrier" versus "more angry." Instances like these, in which competing forms are completely equivalent in terms of meaning, are referred to as examples of "grammatical optionality." The study of comparative optionality has the potential to shed new light on some of the oldest and thorniest issues in language research. Because forms that participate in optional relationships are absolutely identical in terms of meaning, it is possible to tease apart the syntactic, semantic, and processing factors that speakers consider when choosing one form over the other. This same property also allows researchers to see more clearly how processing preferences interact with learning over the course of development. Optional comparative forms have no fixed "-er" or "more" targets that children are trying to achieve. This means, for example, that the choice of "more mellow" over "mellower" at around age seven potentially reveals the underlying mental representation that seven-year-olds are entertaining, a general "more+ADJ" pattern of inflection. The ultimate goal in this line of research is to use the insights garnered from experimental work with children and adults to inform a new theory of word formation, one that is flexible enough to account for the facts presented by the phenomenon of optionality, but rigorous enough to make testable predictions about the nature of the language faculty.

尽管认知科学家在过去的一百年里极大地扩展了我们对语言的知识，这是人类适应的精髓，但我们仍然远离该领域大多数基本问题的坚实，完整的答案：例如，语言是如何习得的，以及它们在大脑中是如何表现和处理的？在法雷尔阿克曼博士的指导下，杰里米·博伊德先生将通过关注英语语法中一个小的、定义明确的领域来解决这些重要问题：一些形容词在“-er”和“more”形式之间的比较级中出现的交替，例如“angrier”与“more angry”。" 像这样的句子，其竞争形式在意义上是完全等同的，被称为“语法选择性”的例子。“比较选择性的研究有可能为语言研究中一些最古老和最棘手的问题提供新的线索。因为参与可选关系的形式在意义上是完全相同的，所以我们可以梳理说话者在选择一种形式时所考虑的句法、语义和处理因素。同样的属性也让研究人员能够更清楚地看到加工偏好如何在发展过程中与学习相互作用。可选的比较形式没有固定的“-er”或“more”的目标，孩子们试图实现。这意味着，例如，在7岁左右，选择“更醇厚”而不是“更醇厚”可能揭示了7岁儿童娱乐的潜在心理表征，即一般的“更多+ADJ”音调变化模式。这一研究方向的最终目标是利用儿童和成人实验工作中获得的见解，为一种新的构词理论提供信息，这种理论足够灵活，可以解释选择性现象所呈现的事实，但又足够严格，可以对语言能力的本质做出可检验的预测。