2016年经济学人 诺姆乔姆斯基 世界最知名语言学家提出诡异理论(下)

 

The cat in the hat can be merged² with a verb phrase to create a new object, a sentence: The cat in the hat came back. And that sentence can be merged into bigger sentences: You think the cat in the hat came back. And so on.

”the cat in the hat”再与动词短语结合就能组成句子” The cat in the hat came back”。短句继续结合组成长句” You think the cat in the hat came back”。以此类推。

Why would this be of any use? No one else had Merge¹. Whom did Prometheus talk to? Nobody, at least not using Merge. (Humans may already have been using cries and gestures, as many animals do.) But Merge-enabled, hierarchically structured language, according to Mr Chomsky, did not evolve for talking at all. Rather, it let Prometheus take simple concepts and combine them in sentence-like ways in his own head. The resulting complex thoughts gave him a survival advantage. If he then passed the mutant Merge gene³ on to several surviving children, who thrived and passed on the Merge gene to their children, Messrs Chomsky and Berwick believe that they must have then come to dominate the population of humans in Africa. Only later, as Merge came to work with the vocal⁴ and hearing organs, did human language emerge.

这能有什么用呢？别人又没有“合并”。“普罗米修斯”与谁去谈话？没有人，至少不用“合并” 。（人类可能正如许多动物一般，一直使用叫喊还有手势。）但是根据乔姆斯基，合并型的、纵向结构的语言并不是为会话而进化。确切地说，这种语言使得“普罗米修斯”采取简单概念，并自己思考用句子的方式把它们结合起来。结果这些复杂思维给了他生存上的优势。如果他当时将这一突变的“合并”基因遗传给自己几位幸存的孩子，而他们继续繁衍并将“合并”基因传递给他们的小孩，乔姆斯基与贝里克认为想必他们那时已经主导了非洲人类。之后只有当“合并”与发音、听力器官相结合，人类语言才得以出现。

Many scholars find this to be somewhere between insufficient⁵, improbable and preposterous⁶. The emergence⁷ of a single mutation⁸ that gives such a big advantage is derided⁹ by biologists as a “hopeful monster” theory; most evolution is gradual, operating on many genes¹⁰, not one. Some ability like Merge may exist, but this does not explain why some words may merge and others don't, much less why the world's languages merge so differently. (Not a single non-English example appears in “Why Only Us”, nor a single foreign language in its index.)

许多学者认为依靠具有“合并”大优势的单一突变体的这一语言进化理论是不充分、不恰当，而且荒谬的。同时这一观点也被生物学家讽刺为“有前途的怪诞”理论；就生物学上认为大多数进化是渐进型，需要很多基因共同作用，而不是单独一个。一些像“合并”的能力可能确实存在，但这不能解释为何一些词汇可能合并而其他不能，更不能解释为何这个世界的语言合并地如此不同。（《为什么我们是唯一的》书中所举的例子都是英语的，在索引里也没有一门外语）

Mr Chomsky says those who disagree with his ever-more contentious¹¹ ideas are either blind or hucksters. Critics refer to a “cult” of “acolytes” around a “Great Leader”, unwilling¹² to challenge him or engage seriously with the work of non-Chomskyan scholars. (One critic has said “to be savaged¹³ by Chomsky is a badge of honour.”) Linguistics¹⁴ is now divided into a Chomskyan camp, a large number of critics and many more still for whom the founder¹⁵ of the modern discipline is simply irrelevant¹⁶. He is unlikely to end up like Freud, a marginal figure in modern psychology¹⁷ whose lasting¹⁸ influence has been on the humanities. Mr Chomsky's career is more likely to end up like Einstein's—at least in the sense that his best and most influential¹⁹ work came early on.

乔姆斯基表示，那些不同意他曾更具争议的想法的人都是瞎子或是跳梁小丑。批评家们把这些解释为一群围着“伟大领导者”打转的信徒们对乔姆斯基的狂热崇拜，他们不愿意挑战他或从事非乔姆斯基学派的学术工作。（一位批评家曾说过“被乔姆斯基抨击也荣幸之至”。）语言学如今被划分成乔姆斯基阵营、大量的批评者以及还有更多是与现代语言体系建立者不相关人等。乔姆斯基本身是不可能像心理学家佛洛依德那样结束他的学术生涯——在现代心理学被边缘化，但却能一直对人性产生持续的影响。乔姆斯基最有可能像爱因斯坦那样—至少在狭义上，他在初期就开始推出最佳且最有影响力的学术著作。

1 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。

2 merged   

（使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中

参考例句：

• Turf wars are inevitable when two departments are merged. 两个部门合并时总免不了争争权限。
• The small shops were merged into a large market. 那些小商店合并成为一个大商场。

3 gene   

n.遗传因子，基因

参考例句：

• A single gene may have many effects.单一基因可能具有很多种效应。
• The targeting of gene therapy has been paid close attention.其中基因治疗的靶向性是值得密切关注的问题之一。

4 vocal   

adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目

参考例句：

• The tongue is a vocal organ.舌头是一个发音器官。
• Public opinion at last became vocal.终于舆论哗然。

5 insufficient   

adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的

参考例句：

• There was insufficient evidence to convict him.没有足够证据给他定罪。
• In their day scientific knowledge was insufficient to settle the matter.在他们的时代，科学知识还不能足以解决这些问题。

6 preposterous   

adj.荒谬的，可笑的

参考例句：

• The whole idea was preposterous.整个想法都荒唐透顶。
• It would be preposterous to shovel coal with a teaspoon.用茶匙铲煤是荒谬的。

7 emergence   

n.浮现，显现，出现，（植物）突出体

参考例句：

• The last decade saw the emergence of a dynamic economy.最近10年见证了经济增长的姿态。
• Language emerges and develops with the emergence and development of society.语言是随着社会的产生而产生，随着社会的发展而发展的。

8 mutation   

n.变化，变异，转变

参考例句：

• People who have this mutation need less sleep than others.有这种突变的人需要的睡眠比其他人少。
• So far the discussion has centered entirely around mutation in the strict sense.到目前为止，严格来讲，讨论完全集中于围绕突变问题上。

9 derided   

v.取笑，嘲笑( deride的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• His views were derided as old-fashioned. 他的观点被当作旧思想受到嘲弄。
• Gazing up to the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity. 我抬头疑视着黑暗，感到自己是一个被虚荣心驱使和拨弄的可怜虫。 来自辞典例句

10 genes   

n.基因( gene的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• You have good genes from your parents, so you should live a long time. 你从父母那儿获得优良的基因，所以能够活得很长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Differences will help to reveal the functions of the genes. 它们间的差异将会帮助我们揭开基因多种功能。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 生物技术的世纪

11 contentious   

adj.好辩的，善争吵的

参考例句：

• She was really not of the contentious fighting sort.她委实不是好吵好闹的人。
• Since then they have tended to steer clear of contentious issues.从那时起，他们总想方设法避开有争议的问题。

12 unwilling   

adj.不情愿的

参考例句：

• The natives were unwilling to be bent by colonial power.土著居民不愿受殖民势力的摆布。
• His tightfisted employer was unwilling to give him a raise.他那吝啬的雇主不肯给他加薪。

13 savaged   

（动物）凶狠地攻击（或伤害）( savage的过去式和过去分词 )； 残害； 猛烈批评； 激烈抨击

参考例句：

• The horse threw its rider to the ground and savaged him. 那马将骑马者摔在地上，乱踢他。
• The drink had savaged him. 酒使他变得野蛮。

14 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。

15 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

16 irrelevant   

adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的

参考例句：

• That is completely irrelevant to the subject under discussion.这跟讨论的主题完全不相关。
• A question about arithmetic is irrelevant in a music lesson.在音乐课上，一个数学的问题是风马牛不相及的。

17 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

18 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。

19 influential   

adj.有影响的，有权势的

参考例句：

• He always tries to get in with the most influential people.他总是试图巴结最有影响的人物。
• He is a very influential man in the government.他在政府中是个很有影响的人物。