Duckworth, W. L. H. (1910), A note on sections of the lips of the primates, J. Anat. and Physiol. 44:348-353.
Feremutsch, K. (1963), Thalamus, in Primatologia: Handbook of Primatology, H. Hofer, A. H. Schultz, and D. Starck (eds.). Vol. II, part2, fasc.6. Karger, Basel.
Fink. B. R. and Kirschner, F. (1959), Observations on the acoustical and mechanical properties of the vocal folds, Folia Phoniatrica 11:167-172.
Goldstein, K. (1942), After-effects of Brain Injuries in War; Their Evaluation and Treatment. Grune and Stratton, New York.
Guiot, G., Hertzog, E., Rondot, P., and Molina, P. (1961), Arrest or acceleration of speech evoked by thalamic stimulation in the course of stereotaxic procedures for Pakinsonism, Brain 84:363-380.
Hartmann-v. Monakow, K. (1965), Psychosyndrome und Sprachstoerungen nach stereotakischen Operationen beim Parkinson-Syndrome, Akt. Fragen Psychiat. Neurol. 2:87-100.
Heberer, G. (ed.) (1965), Menschliche Abstammungslehre; Fortschritte der Anthropogenie, 1863-1964. G. Fischer, Stuttgart.
Hofer, H. (1965), Die morphologische Analyse des Schädels des Menschen, in Menschliche Abstammungslehre, G. Heberer (ed.), Fischer, Stuttgart.
Huber, E. (1931), Evolution of Facial Musculature and Facial Expression. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
Kaplan, H. M. (1960), Anatomy and Physiology of Speech. McGraw-Hill, New York.
Kelemen, G. (1938), Comparative anatomical studies on the junction of larynx and resonant tube, Acta oto-laryng. 26:276-283.
Kelemen, G. (1939), Vergleichende Anatomie und Physiologie der Stimmorgane, Arch, Sprache-Stimmheilk. 3:213-237
Kelemen, G. (1948), the anatomical basis of phonation in the chimpanzee, J. Morphol. 82:229-256.
Kelly, A. H., Beaton, L. E., and Magoun, H. W. (1946). A midbrain mechanism for facio-vocal activity, J. Neurophysiol. 9:181-189.
Kleinschmidt, A. (1938), Die Schulund-Kehlorgane des Gorillas “Bobby,” Morphol. Jahrb. 81:78.
Kleinschmidt, A. (1949-1950), Zur Anatomie des Kehlkopfes der Anthropoiden, Anat. Anz. 97:367-372.
Kreht, H. (1936), Cytoarchitektonik und motorisches Sprachzentrum, Z. Mikroskopischanat. Forsch. 39:331-354.
Kroeber, A. L. (1948), Anthropology. Harcourt. Brace and World, New York.
Kummer, B. (1953), Untersuchungen über die Entwicklung der Schädelform des Menschen und einiger Anthropoiden, in Abhandlungen z. Exakten Biologie. L. von Bertalanfly (ed.), Borntraeger, Berlin.
Lasheley, K. S. and Clark, G. (1946), The cytoarchitecture of the cerebral cortex of Ateles: A critical examination of architectonic studies, J. comp. Neurol. 85:223-305.
Lenneberg, E. H. (1962), Understanding language without ability to speak: a case report, J. Abnorm. Soc. Psycho. 65:419-425.
Lightoller G. S. (1925), Facial Muscles, J. Anat. 60:1-85.
Lightoller G. S. (1928), The facial muscles of three orang utans and two cercopithecidae, J. Anat. 63:19-81.
Luria, A.R. (1947), Traumatic Aphasia: its syndromes, psychopathology and treatment. Academy of Med. Sci., Moscow.
Milner, B. (1962), Laterality effects in audition, in Interhemispheric Relations and Cerebral Dominance. V. B. Mountcastle (ed.), pp.177-195. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
Myers, R.E. (1962), Discussion to E (no title). Interhemispheric Relations and Cerebral Dominance. V.B. Mountcastle (ed.), pp.117-129. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
Negus, V. E. (1929), The Mechanism of the Larynx. Wm. Heineman, London.
Negus, V. E. (1949), The Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Larynx. Grune and Stratton, New York.
Némai, J. and Keleman, G.. (1929), Das Stimmorgan des Orang-Utan, Z. Anat. Entw.Gesch. 88:697-709.
Némai, J. and Keleman, G.. (1933), Beiträge zur Kenntnis des Gibbonkehlkopfes, Z. Anat. Entw.Gesch. 100:512-520.
Penfield, W. And Roberts, L. (1959), Speech and Brain-Mechanisms. Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton.
Ranke, O. F. and Lullies, H. (1953), Gehör, Stimme, und Sprache: Lehrbuch der Physiologie. Springer, Berlin.
Russell, W. R. and Espir, M. L. E. (1961), Traumatic Aphasia: a study of aphasia in war wounds of the brain. Oxford Univ. Press, London.
Schultz, A. H. (1941), The relative size of the cranial capacity in Primates, Am. J. Phys. Anthrop. 28:273-287.
Schultz, A. H. (1958), Palatine ridges, in Primatologia: Handbook of Primatology, Vol. III, Part 1. H. Hofer, A. H. Schultz and D. Starck (eds.). Karger, Basel.
Seckel, H. P. G. (1960), Birdheaded Dwarfs: studies in developmental anthropology including human proportions. C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois.
Skultety, F. M. (1961), Experimental mutism following electronic lesions of the periaqueductal gray matters in dogs, Trans. Am. Neirol. Ass. 86:245-246.
Sonesson, B. (1960), On the anatomy and vibratory pattern of the human vocal folds; with special reference to a photo-electrical method for studying the vibratory movements, Acta Oto-Laryngologica Suppl. 156, Lund.
Starck, D. (1965), Die Neencephalisation, in Menschliche Abstammungslehre. G. Heberer (ed.), Fischer, Stuttgart.
Starck, D. and Schneider, R. (1960), Larynx, in Primatologia: Hdbk of Primatology, Vol. III, Part 2. H. Hofer, A. H. Schultz, and D. Starck (eds.), Karger, Basel.
Van Buren, J. M. (1963), Confusion and disturbance of speech from stimulation in vicinity of the head of the caudate nucleus, J. Neurosurg. 20:148-157.
Walker, A. E. (1938), The Primate Thalamus. Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Weinstein, S. (1962), Differences of brain wounds implicating right or left hemispheres: differential effects on certain intellectual and complex perceptual functions, in Interhemispheric Relations and Cerebral Dominance. V. B. Mountcastle (ed.), pp. 159-176. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
2008年10月30日 星期四
LB 22 1/2-23 1/2 怡君
So much about genetics of behavioral variations within species. The sources cited are only a small sample of the ever-growing field. The studies demonstrate that genetic mechanisms definitely play a role in the development of an individual’s behavior. Many problems remain to be solved. This science is young and its major victories have yet to be won.
很多關於遺傳的行為變異是在物種之內的。這些被引述的資源在這個持續成長的領域裡只是一個小案例而已。這些研究闡述了遺傳機制在個人的行為發展扮演了一項重要角色。很多問題仍待解決。這門科學是很年輕的，而且也還沒贏得大勝利。
It is very tempting to generalize from the genetic experiments mentioned to the genetic basis underlying behavioral variations between species. Although there is little doubt among evolutionists that interspecies differences—be they morphological or behavioral—must eventually be explained by genetic mechanisms, it is well to remember that there are no experiments as yet in which new species have been created. Thus, speciation continues to be a problem—one in which we cannot afford to be involved in the present discussion. For our purpose and argument it will be quite sufficient to mention a few points on which there is wide agreement. Probably the most remarkable of these is that every species has a unique behavior repertoire. Furthermore, the behavioral variations within a species tend to be less pronounced than those between species. Thus the morphological differences on which taxonomy was first based are no more distinctive than behavioral differences, and many ethologists have high hopes that behavior by itself may have the same heuristic value in taxonomy as morphology. This is not a necessary consequence on interspecies behavioral variations. These variations need not have the same evolutionary history as morphology. Theoretically, at least, they mat have greater randomness than form in their distribution or they may be more susceptible to selection pressures than form. However this may be, there are several instances in which species were discovered on the ground of behavioral differences with subsequent confirmation by morphological criteria, as well as instances in which species could be confidently grouped into one family primarily on the grounds of a common behavioral trait (Mayr, 1958).
非常引人的是，
Genetics and evolutionary science point to an inevitable conclusion: behavioral must be considered in the context of species, that is, with references to the specific type of animal that behaves, and thus behavioral science is inseparable from any other biological consideration that concerns that animal.
很多關於遺傳的行為變異是在物種之內的。這些被引述的資源在這個持續成長的領域裡只是一個小案例而已。這些研究闡述了遺傳機制在個人的行為發展扮演了一項重要角色。很多問題仍待解決。這門科學是很年輕的，而且也還沒贏得大勝利。
It is very tempting to generalize from the genetic experiments mentioned to the genetic basis underlying behavioral variations between species. Although there is little doubt among evolutionists that interspecies differences—be they morphological or behavioral—must eventually be explained by genetic mechanisms, it is well to remember that there are no experiments as yet in which new species have been created. Thus, speciation continues to be a problem—one in which we cannot afford to be involved in the present discussion. For our purpose and argument it will be quite sufficient to mention a few points on which there is wide agreement. Probably the most remarkable of these is that every species has a unique behavior repertoire. Furthermore, the behavioral variations within a species tend to be less pronounced than those between species. Thus the morphological differences on which taxonomy was first based are no more distinctive than behavioral differences, and many ethologists have high hopes that behavior by itself may have the same heuristic value in taxonomy as morphology. This is not a necessary consequence on interspecies behavioral variations. These variations need not have the same evolutionary history as morphology. Theoretically, at least, they mat have greater randomness than form in their distribution or they may be more susceptible to selection pressures than form. However this may be, there are several instances in which species were discovered on the ground of behavioral differences with subsequent confirmation by morphological criteria, as well as instances in which species could be confidently grouped into one family primarily on the grounds of a common behavioral trait (Mayr, 1958).
非常引人的是，
Genetics and evolutionary science point to an inevitable conclusion: behavioral must be considered in the context of species, that is, with references to the specific type of animal that behaves, and thus behavioral science is inseparable from any other biological consideration that concerns that animal.
2008年10月1日 星期三
LB 387-390 1/3 怡君
(2) Direction and Rate of Historical Changes
Linguists have repeatedly looked for universal trends in the direction of recent historical changes of natural languages. There seems to be fair consensus that no modern language is in a more primitive stage today than any other; conversely, none may be considered to have arrived at any ultimate, mature, or final stage. All languages have histories, and no language is expected to remain indefinitely in its present outer form. Sapir (1921) and others have proposed a certain cyclicity or universal drift in which languages so from one general type, for instance, a highly inflectional or polysynthetic type to another uninflected, analytical type, and then from this type back to one that essentially resembles the former. The drift hypothesis has not been accepted by all philologists, and the extent of cyclicity is quite uncertain. In recent years, a painstaking search for universals in historical changes (Cowgill, 1963; Hoenigswald, 1963) revealed very little that the authors were willing to regard as evidence for such universals. It appears that historical changes mat take many directions, although certain types of changes occur again and again. This is essentially what the present theory would expect. The outer form, or the realization of what is possible and latent, permits great variability and, sub specie, there is no inherent preference for one or the other course. In fact, tolerance for variability on superficial structure follows directly from the nature of the cognitive mechanisms that underly verbal communication.
We have stressed in earlier chapters that the entire language process may be derived from man’s peculiar mode of categorization. Strictly speaking, words are not labels of fixed and conventionally agreed upon classes of objects but labels of modes of categorization: they characterize a productive, creative process, and the same is true of the categorization of the deeper schemata called phrase-markers. If language functioned by agreement, instead of merely labeling types of processes, utterances would be extremely limited in scope, we could not talk about anything new, and it would take many more years for children to acquire a stock of what to say. Common observation on verbal communication clearly shows that this is not so. Because the vocabulary as well as syntactic rules are manifestations of processes, individuals have considerable freedom to apply them in their own way: the fact that other individuals understand the individualistic modes of rule-application (that is, understand any new utterance that is formed in accordance with rather broad laws) presupposes the degree of tolerance postulated here.
Table 9.2. Variations and constancies of Natural Languages
Tolerance extends to the coining of words, syntactic reclassification of words, and small acts of violence to common syntactic and phonological rules; this tolerance is the key to historical change. The freedoms that individuals may take do not appear to be regulated by any constant and everpresent forces. Consequently, languages may move through history in any one of a great many possible directions, and certain features may disappear or reappear again and again without any apparent order.
The rate of change is ultimately controlled by the turnover of generations ( as also postulated by Hockett, 1950), and this in turn is related to the resonance phenomenon, that is, plasticity during childhood with subsequent consolidation for the rest of an individual’s life. Since each individual becomes stabilized by puberty and does not ordinarily change his language habits, language changes cannot be handed down faster than the duration of one generation. The overlapping of and interaction between generations further slows the rate of change. Thus, historical changes do not become obvious during timespans of less than 60 to 100 years. For a summary of the argument see Table 9.2.
(3) Distribution
G. B. Shaw’s Professor Henry Higgins has made the world aware of dialect geography. Populations that are geographically stationary and not contaminated by language influences from invading or migrating groups or whose language habits do not become equalized through mass media of communication, such as the radio, tend to organize themselves into dialect communities. The geographic extent of each community is fairly well determined by the extent of social, face-to –face interaction of its members. Interacting individuals infects one another with their speech habits due to the resonance phenomenon. Adjacent dialect communities are distinguishable by clear-cut features that separate one community from the other increases with geographic distance (that is, with the number of intervening communities). Dialectal differentiation takes place by discrete steps, and the steps are not of equal size; some isoglosses mark whole bundles of distinctions enhancing the difference between adjacent dialects.
Language geography is further complicated by the fact that the territories of peoples speaking languages of entirely different stock abut. Roman Jakobson noted that it is common for entirely different but adjacent languages to be contaminated by each other in terms of certain phonological features. For instance, clicks are found in many African languages which by their grammar and lexicon cannot be considered as cognate. The distribution of the interdental spirant(th)in Europe is not restricted to cognate languages but is appraently the result of diffusion in the recent past across boundaries of languages of different origin. Some American Indian languages along the Pacific and around the Gulf of Mexico have a characteristic sound-cluster, usually transcribed as /tl/, even though the languages are of very different types.
Linguists have repeatedly looked for universal trends in the direction of recent historical changes of natural languages. There seems to be fair consensus that no modern language is in a more primitive stage today than any other; conversely, none may be considered to have arrived at any ultimate, mature, or final stage. All languages have histories, and no language is expected to remain indefinitely in its present outer form. Sapir (1921) and others have proposed a certain cyclicity or universal drift in which languages so from one general type, for instance, a highly inflectional or polysynthetic type to another uninflected, analytical type, and then from this type back to one that essentially resembles the former. The drift hypothesis has not been accepted by all philologists, and the extent of cyclicity is quite uncertain. In recent years, a painstaking search for universals in historical changes (Cowgill, 1963; Hoenigswald, 1963) revealed very little that the authors were willing to regard as evidence for such universals. It appears that historical changes mat take many directions, although certain types of changes occur again and again. This is essentially what the present theory would expect. The outer form, or the realization of what is possible and latent, permits great variability and, sub specie, there is no inherent preference for one or the other course. In fact, tolerance for variability on superficial structure follows directly from the nature of the cognitive mechanisms that underly verbal communication.
We have stressed in earlier chapters that the entire language process may be derived from man’s peculiar mode of categorization. Strictly speaking, words are not labels of fixed and conventionally agreed upon classes of objects but labels of modes of categorization: they characterize a productive, creative process, and the same is true of the categorization of the deeper schemata called phrase-markers. If language functioned by agreement, instead of merely labeling types of processes, utterances would be extremely limited in scope, we could not talk about anything new, and it would take many more years for children to acquire a stock of what to say. Common observation on verbal communication clearly shows that this is not so. Because the vocabulary as well as syntactic rules are manifestations of processes, individuals have considerable freedom to apply them in their own way: the fact that other individuals understand the individualistic modes of rule-application (that is, understand any new utterance that is formed in accordance with rather broad laws) presupposes the degree of tolerance postulated here.
Table 9.2. Variations and constancies of Natural Languages
Tolerance extends to the coining of words, syntactic reclassification of words, and small acts of violence to common syntactic and phonological rules; this tolerance is the key to historical change. The freedoms that individuals may take do not appear to be regulated by any constant and everpresent forces. Consequently, languages may move through history in any one of a great many possible directions, and certain features may disappear or reappear again and again without any apparent order.
The rate of change is ultimately controlled by the turnover of generations ( as also postulated by Hockett, 1950), and this in turn is related to the resonance phenomenon, that is, plasticity during childhood with subsequent consolidation for the rest of an individual’s life. Since each individual becomes stabilized by puberty and does not ordinarily change his language habits, language changes cannot be handed down faster than the duration of one generation. The overlapping of and interaction between generations further slows the rate of change. Thus, historical changes do not become obvious during timespans of less than 60 to 100 years. For a summary of the argument see Table 9.2.
(3) Distribution
G. B. Shaw’s Professor Henry Higgins has made the world aware of dialect geography. Populations that are geographically stationary and not contaminated by language influences from invading or migrating groups or whose language habits do not become equalized through mass media of communication, such as the radio, tend to organize themselves into dialect communities. The geographic extent of each community is fairly well determined by the extent of social, face-to –face interaction of its members. Interacting individuals infects one another with their speech habits due to the resonance phenomenon. Adjacent dialect communities are distinguishable by clear-cut features that separate one community from the other increases with geographic distance (that is, with the number of intervening communities). Dialectal differentiation takes place by discrete steps, and the steps are not of equal size; some isoglosses mark whole bundles of distinctions enhancing the difference between adjacent dialects.
Language geography is further complicated by the fact that the territories of peoples speaking languages of entirely different stock abut. Roman Jakobson noted that it is common for entirely different but adjacent languages to be contaminated by each other in terms of certain phonological features. For instance, clicks are found in many African languages which by their grammar and lexicon cannot be considered as cognate. The distribution of the interdental spirant(th)in Europe is not restricted to cognate languages but is appraently the result of diffusion in the recent past across boundaries of languages of different origin. Some American Indian languages along the Pacific and around the Gulf of Mexico have a characteristic sound-cluster, usually transcribed as /tl/, even though the languages are of very different types.
LB 457 final-460 1/3 怡君
Jean Baptise Bouillaud (1796-1881) picked up Gall's ideas in connection with cases of aphasia, already in 1825. His thoughts on language were based on his clinical experience, and language was defined in terms of the difficulties his aphasic patients showed in the expression or understanding of single words [75].16 Most of the subsequent work on aphasia, including the famous papers of Paul Broca (1824-1880), published in the 1860’s, and the influential monograph by Carl Wernicke (1848-1905), published in 1874, were predominantly concerned with localization. Language was considered in the simple terms of the reception and emission of single words. This oversimplification undoubtedly contributed to the fact that linguists ignored the implications of the physicians’ findings for language science [76]. Earlier we pointed out that the linguists of the first half of the nineteenth century were philologists to whom the biological basis of language was not a central issue, a situation which had been foreseen by Wilhelm von Humboldt in the 1820’s. With him we shall now begin our detailed discussion of language scientists in the 19th century.
Jean Baptiste Bouillard (1796-1881)已在1825年學到Gall的概念並運用在失語症的個案上。他對語言的想法是建立在他的臨床經驗上，並限定在依據他的失語症病患表達或理解單一字詞的困難上。後來多數關於失語症的著作，包括Paul Broca（1824-1880）出版於1860年代的著名文章，還有Carl Wernicke （1848-1905）出版於1874年，有影響力的專題著作，都顯著地在關注局部化。
Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835) had accepted and expanded Herder’s original viewpoint which had brought language from the sphere of philosophy into the realm of nature, by including reason in man’s natural endowment. Man can understand meaning attributed to sound, or the single word as a concept, only because language as a whole is innately in him. It is therefore inconceivable that language resulted from an accumulation of words. Language capacity is an attribute of intellectual man’s physiology. The changes which occur in languages with the passage of time, are part of historical development [77].
Language science will have to study both man’s language capacity and the history of languages. It will, have two aims, of which the inquiry into man’s language capacity is primary, and the exacting examination of particular language is secondary.
The biological nature of man’s language capacity appeared confirmed by the observation that all children acquire language at nearly the same age, although they may be raised under quite different circumstances. It is “characteristic for the unfolding of other biologically given attributes that a certain time is denoted for their development,” von Humboldt wrote [78].
No language can be understood in terms of a progressive accumulation of words which later becomes structured. Even the most primitive language requires an understanding of sentence structure [79]. Words cannot be equated with the well-defined symbols of mathematics, for they save more often to discover unverified truths than to define a truth which has been fully recognized [80]. Languages differ from each other in that each one has a distinctive facility to discover certain truths, so that every language represents a particular view of the world. The similarity of the language structures results from the fact that all languages are the expression of man’s inborn language capacity which should be the central point of all language studies. Yet “it is still too early to attempt an over-all theory of human speech…or even a general grammar” [81].
Humboldt’s discrimination between man’s language ability as a biological attribute, and the development of language in terms of language history was well taken. Many of the arguments about the origin and nature of language could have been avoided by adhering to a clear-cut separation of these two basic aspects. For Humboldt understood that they were but two integral components of language and that eventually languages would have to be considered in conjunction with man’s language capacity. But the work on languages had not yet progressed to a point where this was feasible.
Humboldt’s exposition of the aims of language science had not included a discussion of the appropriate methods. But by mid-century the question as to whether linguistics would belong to the natural or to the social sciences and this would determine its commitment to a methodology. August Schleicher (1821-1868), linguist and professor at Weimar and Jena, made a decision in favor of natural science. He believed that language had involved from animal sounds and that its development coincided with the development of the brain and the speech organs. The oldest components of language must have been the same everywhere, namely noises to signify percepts (Anschauungen). Schleicher postulated that the evolution of the human race had progressed through three phases: (1) The development of the physical organism in its most basic aspects. (2) The development of the language. (3) Human history. He thought that not all societies had reached this last phase. He was even convinced that the North American Indians had shown themselves unsuited for this phase and would not find a place in history, because of their overly complicated language.
Because language is man’s most outstanding characteristic, people should be classified according to their language which is a much more important attribute than their racial characteristics. Language being a “symptom” of cerebral activity, language differences must rest on some slight anatomical difference of the brain [82]. This direct connection between the characteristics of a language and the organ related to language ability was a rash conclusion. Had Schleicher adhered to Humboldt’s differentiation (of languages and language ability), his formulations might have proven more fruitful.
Very view linguists concurred with Schleicher’s thinking and his commitment to natural science. Friedrich Max Muller (1823-1900) favored the idea that linguistics was a natural science, for he had rejected Schleicher's opinion that language evolved from natural sounds. This German born, Oxford professor of linguistic and literature popularized linguistic by his lectures and is still quoted today as an authority by nonlinguistists. He considered language an irresistible exclusively human instinct. Known languages had developed out of word roots. These roots, the basic components of language, had originally been used of a power inherent in human nature. He considered language and thought inseparable, "... to think is to speak low, to speak is to think aloud"[83]".
Jean Baptiste Bouillard (1796-1881)已在1825年學到Gall的概念並運用在失語症的個案上。他對語言的想法是建立在他的臨床經驗上，並限定在依據他的失語症病患表達或理解單一字詞的困難上。後來多數關於失語症的著作，包括Paul Broca（1824-1880）出版於1860年代的著名文章，還有Carl Wernicke （1848-1905）出版於1874年，有影響力的專題著作，都顯著地在關注局部化。
Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835) had accepted and expanded Herder’s original viewpoint which had brought language from the sphere of philosophy into the realm of nature, by including reason in man’s natural endowment. Man can understand meaning attributed to sound, or the single word as a concept, only because language as a whole is innately in him. It is therefore inconceivable that language resulted from an accumulation of words. Language capacity is an attribute of intellectual man’s physiology. The changes which occur in languages with the passage of time, are part of historical development [77].
Language science will have to study both man’s language capacity and the history of languages. It will, have two aims, of which the inquiry into man’s language capacity is primary, and the exacting examination of particular language is secondary.
The biological nature of man’s language capacity appeared confirmed by the observation that all children acquire language at nearly the same age, although they may be raised under quite different circumstances. It is “characteristic for the unfolding of other biologically given attributes that a certain time is denoted for their development,” von Humboldt wrote [78].
No language can be understood in terms of a progressive accumulation of words which later becomes structured. Even the most primitive language requires an understanding of sentence structure [79]. Words cannot be equated with the well-defined symbols of mathematics, for they save more often to discover unverified truths than to define a truth which has been fully recognized [80]. Languages differ from each other in that each one has a distinctive facility to discover certain truths, so that every language represents a particular view of the world. The similarity of the language structures results from the fact that all languages are the expression of man’s inborn language capacity which should be the central point of all language studies. Yet “it is still too early to attempt an over-all theory of human speech…or even a general grammar” [81].
Humboldt’s discrimination between man’s language ability as a biological attribute, and the development of language in terms of language history was well taken. Many of the arguments about the origin and nature of language could have been avoided by adhering to a clear-cut separation of these two basic aspects. For Humboldt understood that they were but two integral components of language and that eventually languages would have to be considered in conjunction with man’s language capacity. But the work on languages had not yet progressed to a point where this was feasible.
Humboldt’s exposition of the aims of language science had not included a discussion of the appropriate methods. But by mid-century the question as to whether linguistics would belong to the natural or to the social sciences and this would determine its commitment to a methodology. August Schleicher (1821-1868), linguist and professor at Weimar and Jena, made a decision in favor of natural science. He believed that language had involved from animal sounds and that its development coincided with the development of the brain and the speech organs. The oldest components of language must have been the same everywhere, namely noises to signify percepts (Anschauungen). Schleicher postulated that the evolution of the human race had progressed through three phases: (1) The development of the physical organism in its most basic aspects. (2) The development of the language. (3) Human history. He thought that not all societies had reached this last phase. He was even convinced that the North American Indians had shown themselves unsuited for this phase and would not find a place in history, because of their overly complicated language.
Because language is man’s most outstanding characteristic, people should be classified according to their language which is a much more important attribute than their racial characteristics. Language being a “symptom” of cerebral activity, language differences must rest on some slight anatomical difference of the brain [82]. This direct connection between the characteristics of a language and the organ related to language ability was a rash conclusion. Had Schleicher adhered to Humboldt’s differentiation (of languages and language ability), his formulations might have proven more fruitful.
Very view linguists concurred with Schleicher’s thinking and his commitment to natural science. Friedrich Max Muller (1823-1900) favored the idea that linguistics was a natural science, for he had rejected Schleicher's opinion that language evolved from natural sounds. This German born, Oxford professor of linguistic and literature popularized linguistic by his lectures and is still quoted today as an authority by nonlinguistists. He considered language an irresistible exclusively human instinct. Known languages had developed out of word roots. These roots, the basic components of language, had originally been used of a power inherent in human nature. He considered language and thought inseparable, "... to think is to speak low, to speak is to think aloud"[83]".
2008年9月24日 星期三
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