语言的进化与生物语言学进路诠疏——兼评《为什么只有我们:语言与进化》

摘要

语言是区分人类与其他动物的关键特征.人类智力的进化是指一组试图与人类大脑进化和语言起源密切相关的理论.Robert C.Berwick和Noam Chomsky合作的新书《为什么是我们:语言与进化》(Why Only Us:Lan-guage and Evolution)的出版,为我们打开了一扇了解语言进化和语言生物性特征的大门.本文通过回顾一些最近出现的有关语言进化的思想观点和语言进化方面反复出现的问题,并从生物语言学和语言的生物性基础两个方面,对这些相关问题进行了疏解,发现有关语言进化研究是一门跨学科的研究,它的进展牵涉到许多学科的最新发展,而要想在语言进化上达到一致的观点,尚需更多的假设和讨论.%Language is a key feature of distinguishing between humans and other animals.The evolution of human intelligence refers to a group of theories that are closely related to the evolution of human brain and the origin of language.The publication of Why Only Us:Language and Evolution,co-authored by Robert C.Berwick and Noam Chomsky,opens the door to understand-ing language evolution and biological features of language.This paper reviews some of the recent thoughts and ideas on language evolution and the repeatedly-emerging problems of language evolution,and mitigates these related issues from the two aspects of bio-linguistics and language biology.It is found that the study of language evolution is an interdisciplinary study whose progress involves the latest developments in many disciplines and more assumptions and discussions are needed for the achievements of a consistent view on language evolution.