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Evolved structure of language shows lineage-specific trends in word-order universals

机译：语言的进化结构显示了词序通用性中特定于谱系的趋势

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摘要

Languages vary widely but not without limit. The central goal of linguistics is to describe the diversity of human languages and explain the constraints on that diversity. Generative linguists following Chomsky have claimed that linguistic diversity must be constrained by innate parameters that are set as a child learns a language. In contrast, other linguists following Greenberg have claimed that there are statistical tendencies for co-occurrence of traits reflecting universal systems biases, rather than absolute constraints or parametric variation. Here we use computational phylogenetic methods to address the nature of constraints on linguistic diversity in an evolutionary framework. First, contrary to the generative account of parameter setting, we show that the evolution of only a few word-order features of languages are strongly correlated. Second, contrary to the Greenbergian generalizations, we show that most observed functional dependencies between traits are lineage-specific rather than universal tendencies. These findings support the view that-at least with respect to word order-cultural evolution is the primary factor that determines linguistic structure, with the current state of a linguistic system shaping and constraining future states.
机译：语言变化很大，但并非没有限制。语言学的主要目标是描述人类语言的多样性并解释这种多样性的制约因素。乔姆斯基之后的生成语言学家声称，语言多样性必须受到儿童学习语言时所设置的固有参数的限制。相比之下，格林伯格之后的其他语言学家则声称，存在共性的统计趋势反映了普遍的系统偏差，而不是绝对约束或参数变异。在这里，我们使用计算系统发生方法来解决进化框架中语言多样性的约束的性质。首先，与参数设置的生成方式相反，我们表明，语言的仅几个单词顺序特征的演变是紧密相关的。其次，与格林伯格的概括相反，我们表明，大多数观察到的性状之间的功能依赖性是特定于谱系的，而不是普遍的倾向。这些发现支持这样一种观点，即至少就单词顺序而言，文化演变是决定语言结构的主要因素，而语言系统的当前状态正在塑造和约束未来的状态。

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  • 来源
    《Nature》 |2011年第7345期|p.79-82|共4页
  • 作者

    Michael Dunn; Simon J. Greenhill; Stephen C. Levinson; Russell D. Gray;

  • 作者单位

    Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Post Office Box 310,6500 AH Nijmegen.The Netherlands,Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Kapittelweg29,6525 EN Nijmegen, The Netherlands;

    Department of Psychology, University of Auckland, Auckland 1142, New Zealand,Computational Evolution Group, University of Auckland, Auckland 1142, New Zealand;

    Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Post Office Box 310,6500 AH Nijmegen.The Netherlands,Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Kapittelweg29,6525 EN Nijmegen, The Netherlands;

    Department of Psychology, University of Auckland, Auckland 1142, New Zealand;

  • 收录信息 美国《科学引文索引》(SCI);美国《工程索引》(EI);美国《生物学医学文摘》(MEDLINE);美国《化学文摘》(CA);
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  • 正文语种 eng
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