内容预览
第一部分 课后练习
第1章 语言的起源
Study questions
1. Why is itdifficult to agree with Psammetichus that Phrygian must have been the originalhuman language?
Key: Psammetichus left theinfant to grow up among goats. This action caused the infant to imitate the soundsthe goats were making. Psammetichus interpreted this sound as an actual word whichwas in reality just a “be”.
2. What is the basic ideabehind the “bow-wow” theory of language origin?
Key: The basic idea behindthe “bow-wow” theory is the natural sounds. Primitive words could have been imitationsof natural sounds which men and women heard around them.
3. Whyare interjections such as Ouch considered to be unlikely sources of humanspeech sounds?
Key: Interjections containsounds that are not otherwise used in ordinary speech production. They are usuallyproduced with sudden intakes of breath, which is the opposite of ordinary talk,produced on exhaled breath.
4. Whereis the pharynx and how did it become an important part of human soundproduction?
Key: The pharynx is abovethe vocal cords (or voice box) which acts a resonator for sound produced via larynx.
5. Why do you think that young deafchildren who become fluent in sign language would be cited in support of theinnateness hypothesis?
Key: If all children, includingborn deaf can acquire language at about the same time they must be born with specialcapacity to do so. The conclusion is that it must be innate is to say geneticallydetermined.
6. With which of the four“sources” would you associate this quotation?
Chewing, licking and sucking are extremelywidespread mammalian activities, which, in terms of casual observation, haveobvious similarities with speech.
Key: a) The divine source:Language came from Saravasti wife of Brahma.
b) The natural sound: language came from imitations of heard sounds.
c) The physicaladaptation source: language came from physical aspects distinct from other creatures.
d) The geneticsource: language came from innateness hypothesis. Babies are sign language usersor gestural. Human are born with a special capacity for language.
Tasks
A. Whatis the connection between the Heimlich maneuver and the development of humanspeech?
Key: The connection betweenthe Heimlich maneuver and the development of human speech is that both movementstry to push air out through the lungs. The former is a mechanical procedure to dislodgeany obstruction in the air passage while the later is a voluntary process of vocalizationrequired for speech involving the vocal chords, the oral cavity, the tongue etc.for speech output.
B. What exactly happened at Babel and why is it used in explanations of language origins?
Key: The Bible says that:"... the whole earth was of one language and of one speech..." after theflood. Communication among men was good. Men could freely express their ideas, designs,plans and notions with one another... and invent ways to implement them.
The indication ofscripture is that God has put man on a 6000 year time schedule. One reason is tolet man learn that he is incapable of governing himself apart from the laws of God.Recent history shows how, with the language barrier less of a problem today thanin centuries past, the communication between peoples, nations and cultures is "bringingthe world back to the time when the whole earth was of one speech".
C. What are the arguments for andagainst a teleological explanation of the origins ofhuman language?
Key: We look at evidence that language is an innate ability of the human brain,an idea linked to Noam Chomsky. But many linguists and psychologists see languageas one facet of cognition rather than as a separate ability. Since Chomsky and Gould have made a number of assertions that language(the communication system unique to human beings), could not have evolved throughnatural selection, and natural selection has long been the prevailing theory inevolutionary biology, the challenge presented by Pinker and Bloom was to developa theory of language origin that was compatible with the mainstream theory of evolution,the theory of natural selection.
D. The idea that“ontogenyrecapitulates phylogeny” wasfirst proposed by Ernst Haeckel in 1866 and is still frequently usedin discussions of language origins. Can you find a simpler or less technicalway to express this idea?
Key: Ontogeny is the course of development of an organism from fertilizedegg to adult; phylogeny is the evolutionary history of a group of organisms. Thephrase "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" means that as an embryo of anadvanced organism grows, it will pass through stages that look very much like theadult phase of less-advanced organisms.
E. In hisanalysis of the beginnings of human language, William Foley comes to the conclusionthat “language as we understand it was born about 200,000 yearsago” (1997: 73). This is substantially earlier than the dates (between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago) that other scholars haveproposed. What kinds of evidence and arguments aretypically presented in order tochoose a particular date “when language was born”?
Key: There is no consensuson the ultimate origin or age of the origin of language in the human species. Scholarswishing to study the origins of language must draw inferences from other kinds ofevidence such as the fossil record or from archaeological evidence, from contemporarylanguage diversity, from studies of language acquisition, and from comparisons betweenhuman language and systems of communication existing among other animals, particularlyother primates. It is generally agreed that the origins of language are closelytied to the origins of modern human behavior, but there is little agreement aboutthe implications and directionality of this connection.
F. What is the connection between the innatenesshypotheses, as described in this chapter, and the idea of a Universal Grammar?
Key: Universal grammar isa topic that has been researched in linguistics since the mid-20th century. Thebasic, fundamental structure of all human languages is very similar, in spite ofthe obvious differences in vocabulary and sound. This basic structure is calledUniversal Grammar. The innateness hypothesis is the idea that this Universal Grammaris present in all healthy human minds as a result of biological inheritance (inother words, grammar is innate).
