2019年经济学人 约翰逊语言专栏--语言的无限(2)

 

The second claim is that language is innate¹, not merely an extension of general human intelligence. Fascinating evidence comes from children who are deprived of it. Deaf pupils at a school in Nicaragua, having never shared a language with anyone before, created a grammatically ornate sign language on their own. A few deaf children in a Mexican family devised a rich sign system with complex grammatical features found in spoken tongues: in their “homesign”, nouns are preceded by a “classifier”, a sign indicating their type, just as they sometimes are in Chinese. It seems the human mind simply cannot help but deal in grammar.

第二种观点认为语言是与生俱来的，而不仅仅是一般人类智力的延伸。有趣的证据来自于那些缺乏这种能力的孩子。尼加拉瓜一所学校的失聪学生以前从未与任何人分享过一种语言，他们自己创造了一种语法华丽的手语。墨西哥一个家庭的几个聋哑儿童设计了一个丰富的手语系统，具有口语中复杂的语法特征：在他们的“homesign”中，名词前面有一个“classifier”，这是一个标志，表示他们的类型，就像他们有时在汉语中一样。人类的大脑似乎就是忍不住要处理语法问题。

A more controversial claim is that all human languages share what Mr Chomsky calls “universal grammar”. This proposition has taken some hard knocks. Whether recursion is universal, for example, is contested. In 2009 two linguists² published a widely cited paper called “The myth of language universals”, which seemed to find exceptions to other putatively³ universal rules. The paper said it was not even clear that all the world’s languages observed a noun-verb distinction; Mr Adger counters with evidence that even the supposed outliers pay some attention to this split.

更有争议的说法是，所有人类语言都有乔姆斯基所说的“通用语法”。这个提议遭到了一些沉重的打击。例如，递归是否普遍存在争议。2009年，两位语言学家发表了一篇被广泛引用的论文，名为《语言普遍性的神话》。这篇论文称，甚至不清楚世界上所有的语言是否都存在名词和动词的区别；阿杰反驳称，有证据表明，即便是所谓的异常值，也对这种分化有所关注。

Many of the universals that hold up best are negative. There are many sensible things languages could do, but don’t. Notably⁴, their grammars do not make use of “continuous” features, such as the length of vowels⁵. For instance, a past-tense verb could be pronounced for a longer time to indicate how long ago the action occurred—perfectly logical, but no language does this. Syntax uses discrete⁶ units, not continuous ones. Whether this is proof of universality is a matter of opinion.

许多最能站得住脚的普遍性都是负面的。语言可以做很多看起来合理的事情，但是没有做。值得注意的是，他们的语法没有使用“连续的”特征，比如元音的长度。例如，过去时态动词可以发音更长的时间来表示动作发生的时间——完全符合逻辑，但是没有语言能做到这一点。语法使用离散单元，而不是连续单元。这是否证明普遍性是一个意见问题。

Lastly, Mr Adger embraces the latest of Mr Chomsky’s theories, “Merge⁷”, a mental function in which two units may be joined to a larger one that can then be operated on by the mind’s grammar processor. The two-year-old who beat Kanzi could Merge “water and lighter” and apply the verb to both; Kanzi seemed to treat words like beads⁸ on a string, rather than mentally grouping them into bigger units in a structure.

最后，阿杰接受了乔姆斯基最新的理论——“合并”。“合并”是一种心理功能，两个单元可以连接到一个更大的单元上，然后由大脑的语法处理器进行操作。打败Kanzi的两岁孩子可以把“水和打火机”结合起来，并把动词用在两者上；Kanzi似乎把单词当作串在弦上的珠子，而不是在心里把它们分成一个结构中的更大的单元。

Mr Chom sky thinks a single human developed the ability to perform Merge tens of thousands of years ago, and that this is the only feature unique to human language. Mr Adger does not explicitly⁹ defend either of these claims. But his tour of Chomskyan linguistics¹⁰ is entertaining and accessible—in contrast to Mr Chomsky’s own notoriously baffling prose. His book is a handy introduction to a vexed¹¹ debate on the infinite power of the finite mortal mind.

乔姆?斯基认为，人类在数万年前就有了融合的能力，这是人类语言唯一的特点。阿杰并未明确为上述两种说法中的任何一种辩护。但是他对乔姆斯基语言学的游历是有趣且通俗易懂的，这与乔姆斯基先生臭名昭著的令人困惑的散文形成鲜明对比。他的书方便地介绍了一场关于有限的凡人心灵的无限力量的争论。

1 innate   

adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的

参考例句：

• You obviously have an innate talent for music.你显然有天生的音乐才能。
• Correct ideas are not innate in the mind.人的正确思想不是自己头脑中固有的。

2 linguists   

n.通晓数国语言的人( linguist的名词复数 )；语言学家

参考例句：

• The linguists went to study tribal languages in the field. 语言学家们去实地研究部落语言了。 来自辞典例句
• The linguists' main interest has been to analyze and describe languages. 语言学家的主要兴趣一直在于分析并描述语言。 来自辞典例句

3 putatively   

adv.推定地

参考例句：

• If blue whales above waterare only putatively blue, then below the surface they go indisputably turquoise. 如果说蓝鲸在水面上的蓝色有点牵强，那么它们在水下的蓝就是毫无疑问的。 来自互联网

4 notably   

adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地

参考例句：

• Many students were absent,notably the monitor.许多学生缺席，特别是连班长也没来。
• A notably short,silver-haired man,he plays basketball with his staff several times a week.他个子明显较为矮小，一头银发，每周都会和他的员工一起打几次篮球。

5 vowels   

n.元音，元音字母( vowel的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Vowels possess greater sonority than consonants. 元音比辅音响亮。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Note the various sounds of vowels followed by r. 注意r跟随的各种元音的发音。 来自超越目标英语 第3册

6 discrete   

adj.个别的，分离的，不连续的

参考例句：

• The picture consists of a lot of discrete spots of colour.这幅画由许多不相连的色点组成。
• Most staple fibers are discrete,individual entities.大多数短纤维是不联系的单独实体。

7 merge   

v.(使)结合，(使)合并，(使)合为一体

参考例句：

• I can merge my two small businesses into a large one.我可以将我的两家小商店合并为一家大商行。
• The directors have decided to merge the two small firms together.董事们已决定把这两家小商号归并起来。

8 beads   

n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链

参考例句：

• a necklace of wooden beads 一条木珠项链
• Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead. 他的前额上挂着汗珠。

9 explicitly   

ad.明确地，显然地

参考例句：

• The plan does not explicitly endorse the private ownership of land. 该计划没有明确地支持土地私有制。
• SARA amended section 113 to provide explicitly for a right to contribution. 《最高基金修正与再授权法案》修正了第123条，清楚地规定了分配权。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

10 linguistics   

n.语言学

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• Linguistics is a scientific study of the property of language.语言学是指对语言的性质所作的系统研究。

11 vexed   

adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论

参考例句：

• The conference spent days discussing the vexed question of border controls. 会议花了几天的时间讨论边境关卡这个难题。
• He was vexed at his failure. 他因失败而懊恼。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》