2019年经济学人 约翰逊语言专栏--语言的无限(1)

约翰逊语言专栏--语言的无限(1)

Johnson

约翰逊语言专栏

Everyday superheroes

日常的超级英雄

A new book spells out the magic of language

一本新书阐明了语言的魔力

In “avengers: endgame”, a superhero blockbuster, the baddy’s Infinity¹ Gauntlet gives him the power to snuff out the universe with the snap of a finger. This may sound impressive, but—although few realise it—ordinary people possess an infinite power, too: language.

在超级英雄大片《复仇者联盟3:终局之战》中，灭霸的无限手套可以一个响指消灭整个宇宙。这听起来可能令人印象深刻，尽管很少有人意识到，但是通人也拥有一种无限的力量：语言。

Write a new sentence and Google it. The chances are good that it appears nowhere among the billions on the internet. Steven Pinker, a professor of linguistics², reckons a conservative estimate of the number of grammatical, 20-word sentences a human might produce is at least a hundred million trillion— far more than the number of grains of sand on Earth. Most can easily be made longer (try adding “She said that…” to the beginning of any declarative sentence). In theory, the only thing preventing this power from being literally³ infinite is the human lifespan: some possible sentences would be too long to say even in threescore years and ten.

写下一个新句子，然后在谷歌上查阅。它很有可能在互联网上的数十亿句子中无处可寻。语言学教授史蒂文·平克估计，保守估计，一个人能说出至少有1亿个亿20个单词的语法句子——远远超过地球上沙粒的数量。大多数都可以很容易地变长(试着在陈述句的开头加上“She said that…”)。从理论上讲，唯一能阻止这种力量无限存在的是人类的寿命：有些可能的句子太长了，甚至一辈子都说不完。

This awesome⁴ talent is the subject of a new book, “Language Unlimited” by David Adger of Queen Mary University, the president of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain. Mr Adger does not just celebrate language’s infinity. He maintains that it is the distinct result of a unique capacity, advancing a series of arguments whose best-known exponent⁵ is Noam Chomsky.

英国玛丽女王大学的大卫·阿杰和英国语言学协会主席出版了一本新书《语言的无限》。阿杰先生不仅仅是在庆祝语言的无穷无尽。他坚持认为，这是一种独特能力的独特结果，提出了一系列以诺姆?乔姆斯基为代表的观点。

The book’s first, and strongest, claim is that human language is different from animal communication not just in scope, but in kind. Most important, it is hierarchical and nested in structure. A highly trained bonobo called Kanzi can obey commands such as “Give water [to] Rose”. But Kanzi does no better than random⁶ chance when told to “Give water and lighter⁷ to Rose.” Meanwhile, a two-year-old child tested alongside Kanzi quickly intuits that two nouns can make up a noun phrase, tucked as a direct object into a verb phrase, which in turn is part of a sentence. This “recursive” structure is key to syntax.

这本书的第一个也是最有力的主张是，人类的语言不仅在范围上不同于动物的交流，而且在性质上也不同。最重要的是，人类语言是分层的和嵌套的结构。一只名叫Kanzi的受过良好训练的倭黑猩猩能够服从诸如“给玫瑰浇水”之类的命令。但是当Kanzi被告知“给玫瑰浇水和给玫瑰打火机”时，他的表现并不比随机选择好多少。与此同时，一个两岁大的孩子和Kanzi一起做了测试，孩子很快就察觉到，两个名词可以组成一个名词短语，作为直接宾语塞进一个动词短语中，而动词短语又是句子的一部分。这种“递归”结构是语法的关键。

1 infinity   

n.无限，无穷，大量

参考例句：

• It is impossible to count up to infinity.不可能数到无穷大。
• Theoretically,a line can extend into infinity.从理论上来说直线可以无限地延伸。

2 linguistics   

n.语言学

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• Linguistics is a scientific study of the property of language.语言学是指对语言的性质所作的系统研究。

3 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

4 awesome   

adj.令人惊叹的，难得吓人的，很好的

参考例句：

• The church in Ireland has always exercised an awesome power.爱尔兰的教堂一直掌握着令人敬畏的权力。
• That new white convertible is totally awesome.那辆新的白色折篷汽车简直棒极了.

5 exponent   

n.倡导者，拥护者；代表人物；指数，幂

参考例句：

• She is an exponent of vegetarianism.她是一个素食主义的倡导者。
• He had been the principal exponent of the Gallipoli campaign.他曾为加里波利战役的主要代表人物。

6 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。

7 lighter   

n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级

参考例句：

• The portrait was touched up so as to make it lighter.这张画经过润色，色调明朗了一些。
• The lighter works off the car battery.引燃器利用汽车蓄电池打火。