目录 第1章语言的起源 第2章动物与人类语言 第3章语音 第4章语言模式 第5章构词法 第6章形态学 第7章语法 第8章句法学 第9章语义学 第10章语用学 第11章话语分析 第12章语言与大脑 第13章第一语言习得 第14章第二语言习得 第15章姿态与手势语 第16章书写文字 第17章语言的历史与变迁 第18章语言与地域变体 第19章语言与社会变体 第20章语言与文化 第1章语言的起源 Study questions 1. Why is it difficult to agree with Psammetichus that Phrygian must have been the original human language? Key: Psammetichus left the infant to grow up among goats. This action caused the infant to imitate the sounds the goats were making. Psammetichus interpreted this sound as an actual word which was in reality just a “be”. 2. What is the basic idea behind the “bow-wow” theory of language origin? Key: The basic idea behind the “bow-wow” theory is the natural sounds. Primitive words could have been imitations of natural sounds which men and women heard around them. 3. Why are interjections such as Ouch considered to be unlikely sources of human speech sounds? Key: Interjections contain sounds that are not otherwise used in ordinary speech production. They are usually produced with sudden intakes of breath, which is the opposite of ordinary talk, produced on exhaled breath. 4. Where is the pharynx and how did it become an important part of human sound production? Key: The pharynx is above the vocal cords (or voice box) which acts a resonator for sound produced via larynx. 5. Why do you think that young deaf children who become fluent in sign language would be cited in support of the innateness hypothesis? Key: If all children, including born deaf can acquire language at about the same time they must be born with special capacity to do so. The conclusion is that it must be innate is to say genetically determined. 6. With which of the four “sources” would you associate this quotation? Chewing, licking and sucking are extremely widespread mammalian activities, which, in terms of casual observation, have obvious 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 physical adaptation source: language came from physical aspects distinct from other creatures. d) The genetic source: language came from innateness hypothesis. Babies are sign language users or gestural. Human are born with a special capacity for language. Tasks A. What is the connection between the Heimlich maneuver and the development of human speech? Key: The connection between the Heimlich maneuver and the development of human speech is that both movements try to push air out through the lungs. The former is a mechanical procedure to dislodge any obstruction in the air passage while the latter is a voluntary process of vocalization required 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 the flood. 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 of scripture is that God has put man on a 6000 year time schedule. One reason is to let 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 than in centuries past, the communication between peoples, nations and cultures is “bringing the world back to the time when the whole earth was of one speech”. C. What are the arguments for and against a teleological explanation of the origins of human 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 language as 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 through natural selection, and natural selection has long been the prevailing theory in evolutionary biology, the challenge presented by Pinker and Bloom was to develop a theory of language origin that was compatible with the mainstream theory of evolution, the theory of natural selection. D. The idea that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” was first proposed by Ernst Haeckel in 1866 and is still frequently used in discussions of language origins. Can you find a simpler or less technical way to express this idea? Key: Ontogeny is the course of development of an organism from fertilized egg to adult; phylogeny is the evolutionary history of a group of organisms. The phrase “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” means that as an embryo of an advanced organism grows, it will pass through stages that look very much like the adult phase of less-advanced organisms. E. In his analysis of the beginnings of human language, William Foley comes to the conclusion that “language as we understand it w