演化论与中国语言学

Evolution Perspective and Chinese Linguistics

本文采纳演化论观点,认为语言是以一种马赛克形态出现的,它是融合了人类各种健全的感官功能、肌肉运动、运算和记忆能力并以此为基础建立起来的。本文简要介绍了目前香港地区两大主要的理论研究趋向。一类研究以多因素交互的方式模仿语言出现时的状态,研究发现,词汇与形态-句法同步演化,句子结构源于短语结构。另一类研究主要关注大脑电波是如何反映语言加工过程的,研究发现:语言异常现象在早期即可借助事件相关电位波技术(Event-Related Potential,ERP)进行识别;声调也绝对可以被感知,即使是在人类注意力被其他事件占据之时。本文提出:语言应采取多学科交叉的宽视角进行研究,即把共时与历时、个体与群体、生物学与社会学、理论与应用等研究结合起来。多领域的研究最终将归结在一起,实现近来由爱德华·威尔逊(Edward O.Wilson)所阐明的真正意义上的"一致"。

This paper adopts an evolutionary perspective,in which human language emerged as a mosaic,integrating and building upon many sensory,motoric,computational,and memorial endowments that are especially well developed in our species. I report briefly on two research directions currently pursued in our group in Hong Kong.In one direction,we simulate language emergence by multi-agent interaction;we find that the lexicon co-evolves with morphosyntax,and that sentential order results from generalized phrasal order.In the other direction,we study how language processing is reflected electrically in brain waves.We discover that linguistic anomalies are detected very early in the ERPs,and that lexical tones are perceived categorically even when our attention is occupied elsewhere. The paper suggests that language should be studied in a broad multi-disciplinary perspective, blending the synchronic with the diachronic,the individual with the communal,the biological with the social,the theoretic with the applied.Results from these many areas will eventually converge to the 'consilience' in the sense recently defined by E.O.Wilson.