语言起源、持续演化及生物语言学研究 | 多因素驱动与理论演进

注：本文为 “语言起源、演化” 相关合辑。
英文引文，机翻未校。
中文引文，未整理去重。
略作重排，如有内容异常，请看原文。

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Language evolution: How language was built and made to evolve

语言进化：语言的构建与进化机制

Bernard H. Bichakjian

Available online 30 March 2017, Version of Record 18 August 2017.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2017.03.004

摘要

Today’s mainstream research in language evolution leaves from the assumption that language is an exclusively human feature, a steady-state entity like our biological organs, and endeavors to discover the phylogenetic event that endowed us with this mental “organ” or the clinching moment language became possible.
当今语言进化的主流研究基于一个假设：语言是人类独有的特征，是类似生物器官的稳态实体，并致力于探寻赋予我们这一心理“器官”的种系发生事件，或是语言成为可能的关键瞬间。

The fossil evidence from the development of central and peripheral speech organs provides, however, no support for the alleged existence of a fateful event that would have dubbed a speechless ancestor into a speech-vested mutant; instead, it outlines a gradual – be it by the nature of the archeological evidence staccato – development of speech organs from the hints detected on the endocranial casts of the most archaic member of the genus Homo to the full-blown apparatus of modern humans.
然而，来自中枢和外周发声器官演化的化石证据，并不支持所谓“将无语言祖先转变为具备语言能力突变体”的决定性事件存在；相反，它勾勒出发声器官的渐进式演化——尽管考古证据本身具有断续性——从在最古老的人属（Homo）成员颅内铸型上发现的痕迹，到现代人类成熟的发声系统。

The linguistic support of the mainstream approach is even more wanting. Far from being a steady-state accessory, language has evolved to become an ever more efficient instrument of thought and communication. This paper will argue that it started with implements improvised on the basis of a sensory mapping of the outside world and gradually developed into a set of mentally created alternatives properly crafted for linguistic operations.
主流研究方法的语言学依据则更为匮乏。语言绝非稳态的附属品，而是已进化为日益高效的思维与交流工具。本文认为，语言最初源于基于外部世界感官映射的即兴表达工具，随后逐渐发展为一套为语言运算量身打造的、由心智创造的替代系统。

The evolution of writing from figurative hieroglyphs to symbolic letters provides a useful illustration. This is not to say that the evolution of language and the evolution of writing are related. The process is universal and can be seen just as well in the steady and sustained evolution of offensive weapons from the manually-cast sensory stones all the way to the artificially-propelled mentally-developed ballistic missiles. But the illustration that will be chosen here is that of the evolution of writing from figurative hieroglyphs to symbolic letters because, in addition to providing a useful illustration, it does also supply added support to the consolidation of the left hemisphere as the brain’s linguistic center.
从具象象形文字到符号字母的文字进化提供了有益例证。这并非意味着语言进化与文字进化存在关联——该过程具有普遍性，例如攻击性武器的稳步持续进化：从手工投掷的感官层面的石块，到人工推进的、心智设计的弹道导弹，均呈现这一规律。但本文选择文字从象形文字到符号字母的进化作为例证，不仅因其具有说明价值，更因其能为“左半球作为大脑语言中枢的巩固”提供额外支撑。

Keywords

关键词

Alphabet
字母表

Argument alignment
论元配位

Direction of writing
书写方向

Language evolution
语言进化

Right and left hemispheres
大脑左右半球

Hieroglyphs
象形文字

Nativist hypothesis
天赋论假说

Sensory mapping
感官映射

Word order
语序

1. Redefining the term

1. 术语的重新定义

1.1. The traditional assumption

1.1. 传统假设

In linguistics, the terms evolve and evolution were traditionally applied to natural languages when discussing the changes that happened in the course of their histories. These words were never meant to have the exact denotation they have in biology or astrophysics, but they did convey the impression that the unfolding process was somehow beneficial. No diligent attempt was made to investigate the selective advantages of an item over its antecedent, but there was the latent assumption that History brings progress and that the changes that belong to the flow of history marked advancement and constituted improvement. It will be recalled that the nineteenth century and perhaps the first half of the twentieth were under the strong influence of Auguste Comte’s social evolutionism, a theory that advocated a three-stage evolution of human societies. Comte, who is considered the founder of sociology, lived from 1798 to 1857 and published his seminal Discours sur l’esprit positif in 1844.
在语言学中，“进化（evolve）”与“演化（evolution）”术语传统上用于描述自然语言在历史进程中发生的变化。这些词汇并非旨在传达其在生物学或天体物理学中的精确含义，但确实隐含着“演变过程具有某种益处”的意味。学界从未深入探究某一语言要素相较于其前身的选择优势，却潜藏着一种假设：历史带来进步，历史进程中的变化标志着发展与改善。需指出的是，19 世纪乃至 20 世纪上半叶，奥古斯特·孔德的社会进化论影响力深远，该理论主张人类社会经历三阶段演化。孔德被视为社会学奠基人，生于 1798 年，卒于 1857 年，其开创性著作《实证哲学教程》（Discours sur l’esprit positif）于 1844 年出版。

While evolutionism was a strong force in the nineteenth century intellectual world, linguists were primarily concerned with the study of sibling languages and the reconstruction of their common ancestor. One of the leading figures was August Schleicher (1821–1868), a distinguished Indo-Europeanist and a strong admirer of Darwin (1863/1873: 6), but a linguist at a complete loss before the empirical data, which in his eyes were on a retrogressive course. In his judgment, the erosion of the morphological systems ongoing since the fragmentation of the Indo-European protolanguage was not a positive development, but a case of pure decay ([1850]1852: 14–30). But given the strength of the prevailing evolutionary climate, Schleicher was compelled to find a compromise model where the steam is periodically reversed. He found it in Hegel’s dialectic, which postulates that a thesis becomes confronted with its antithesis and the conflicting interaction produces a synthesis that in turn becomes a higher thesis. So, a step backward can be part of an overall forward movement. But the erosion of morphological markers was not a step backward!

尽管进化论在 19 世纪思想界占据主导地位，语言学家的核心关注点仍是同源语言研究及其共同祖先的重建。奥古斯特·施莱歇尔（1821–1868）是其中代表人物，他是杰出的印欧语学家，深受达尔文推崇（1863/1873：6），但面对实证数据时却陷入困惑——在他看来，这些数据显示语言处于退化状态。他认为，自原始印欧语分化以来，形态系统的侵蚀并非积极发展，而是纯粹的衰退（[1850]1852：14–30）。但在当时浓厚的进化论氛围下，施莱歇尔不得不寻找一种“进程周期性逆转”的折中模型。他从黑格尔辩证法中找到答案：该理论认为，正题与反题对立，冲突互动产生合题，而合题又成为更高层次的正题。因此，后退一步可能是整体前进的一部分——但形态标记的侵蚀绝非后退！

Antoine Meillet (1866–1936), a disciple of Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913) and an authority in Indo-European linguistics, had none of Schleicher’s misgivings. He regularly used the term “développement” in his treatise on the comparative method (1925: 11 and passim), and having argued that “la morphologie évolue comme la phonétique d’après des formules générales,” he went on to conclude that the observed two-track development constitutes “un fait fundamental de l’évolution des langues indo-européennes” (1925: 92–93, with emphasis added). It will be borne in mind that syntax was at the time a matter of lesser interest.
安托万·梅耶（1866–1936）是费尔迪南·德·索绪尔（1857–1913）的弟子，也是印欧语语言学权威，他并未抱有施莱歇尔的疑虑。他在比较语法专著中频繁使用“发展（développement）”一词（1925：11 及全书各处），并提出“形态学与语音学一样，遵循普遍规律进化（la morphologie évolue comme la phonétique d’après des formules générales）”，进而得出结论：观察到的双轨发展是“印欧语言演化（évolution）的基本事实”（1925：92–93，着重号为原文所加）。需注意的是，当时句法并未受到太多关注。

From a different vantage point and using a narrative visibly marked by the developing Synthetic Theory, Edward Sapir (1884–1939) wrote: “Language moves down in a current of its own making. It has drift … [and] linguistic drift has direction. … only those individual variations embody or carry it which move in a certain direction” ([1921]1949: 150 and 155).
爱德华·萨丕尔（1884–1939）则从不同视角出发，其论述明显带有综合进化论的印记：“语言在自身形成的潮流中演进，它具有漂移性……且语言漂移具有方向性……只有那些朝着特定方向发展的个体变异，才能体现或推动这种漂移”（[1921]1949：150、155）。

Today in biology, “drift” relates to the concept of “genetic drift,” the fortuitous change taking place within a population in the frequencies of variant forms of a gene. The discovery of the occurrence of such an alternative form of evolutionary change is attributed to population geneticist Sewall Wright (1889–1988). But Wright used this term for the first time in 1929 and in the sense of an ordinary evolutionary change some eight years after Sapir, and four years after their becoming colleagues at the University of Chicago (Wright, 1929). Since Sapir was both a linguist and an anthropologist and since his Language was written, partially at least, to introduce biologists to linguistics, the osmosis of the two fields of research and the evolutionary orientation of linguistics at the dawn of the twentieth century seem hardly deniable.
如今在生物学中，“漂移（drift）”指“遗传漂变”，即种群内基因变异型频率的偶然变化。这种替代性进化方式的发现归功于群体遗传学家休厄尔·赖特（1889–1988）。但赖特直到 1929 年才首次使用该术语（1929），且其含义为普通进化变化——这比萨丕尔的论述晚了 8 年，且是在两人成为芝加哥大学同事 4 年之后（Wright, 1929）。由于萨丕尔兼具语言学家与人类学家身份，且其著作《语言论》（Language）至少部分旨在向生物学家介绍语言学，因此 20 世纪初两大学科的交叉渗透以及语言学的进化导向，似乎无可否认。

But the evolutionary orientation would soon meet a sudden death. The Prague School of Linguistics headed by the Russian refugee prince Nikolai Trubetzkoy (1890–1938) and strongly represented by the master’s salient disciples Roman Jakobson (1896–1982) and André Martinet (1908–1999) drew its inspiration from Saussure’s structural conception of language and came to the conclusion that language change was the diligent mending of occasional flaws in the linguistic fabric (Jakobson, 1931: 265–7). The process was not linear, but circular – the mending of flaws would trigger new flaws that would call for new mending jobs. This circular action perpetually repeated was much to the dismay of the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen (1860–1943).
但这种进化导向很快戛然而止。以俄国流亡贵族尼古拉·特鲁别茨科伊（1890–1938）为首的布拉格语言学派，其核心弟子罗曼·雅各布森（1896–1982）与安德烈·马丁内（1908–1999）进一步发展了该学派理论。该学派受索绪尔语言结构观启发，认为语言变化是对语言系统中偶然缺陷的精心修补（Jakobson, 1931：265–267）。这一过程并非线性，而是循环的——修补缺陷会引发新的缺陷，进而需要新的修补。这种持续重复的循环过程让丹麦语言学家奥托·叶斯柏森（1860–1943）深感不满。

For Jespersen, there was not the slightest doubt that the erosion of morphological markers was a propitious development, one that endowed speakers with alternative devices that constitute a lighter burden for the brain (1922/1964: 364). The German linguist Hugo Schuchardt (1848–1927) had said it with a touch of humor, but with biting accuracy: “Des Sprachhistorikers Freud ist des Sprachbrauchers Leid” (The language historian’s joy is the language users pain). With such considerations, Jespersen’s conception of linguistic evolution was the closest to that of the Darwinian model, but he received no support from the advocates of the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis and the general opinion among linguists remained guarded with a supporter of circularity even finding a far-fetched Hungarian counterexample of morphological erosion (Collinder, 1936: 58–59 and 1956: 120). Linguists were perhaps ready to give a slight undefined advantage to the output of profound changes, but the injunction that antiquitas veneranda est and the bewitching character of the wheel continued to weigh heavily. Circularity was also going to be useful for the pursuit of relativistic goals.
在叶斯柏森看来，形态标记的侵蚀无疑是有益的发展——它为说话者提供了替代手段，减轻了大脑负担（1922/1964：364）。德国语言学家胡戈·舒哈特（1848–1927）曾幽默而尖锐地指出：“语言历史学家的喜悦，正是语言使用者的痛苦（Des Sprachhistorikers Freud ist des Sprachbrauchers Leid）”。基于这些考量，叶斯柏森的语言演化观最接近达尔文模型，但他并未得到现代综合进化论支持者的认可，语言学家的普遍态度仍持保留意见——甚至有循环论支持者找到一个牵强的匈牙利语形态侵蚀反例（Collinder, 1936：58–59；1956：120）。语言学家或许愿意承认重大变化的结果具有某种模糊的优势，但“尊崇古制（antiquitas veneranda est）”的信条以及循环论的吸引力仍影响深远。此外，循环论也有助于实现相对主义目标。

1.2. The social concern

1.2. 社会考量

After Sapir and Jespersen and their linear models, came a game changer, bringing in new values and new criteria. Let us assume feature A has become B in language L while remaining unchanged in language K. If B is categorically recognized to have a substantial advantage over A, the fear was raised that an ill-inspired demagogue would argue that K is a lesser language than L, and by way of corollary go on to claim that the speakers of K belong to a lesser population. The specter of fueling unwanted ideologies changed the tone of the debate and imposed a new premise. Whereas the advocates of perhaps-a-slight-advantage were expressing a tempered view, the opponents considered it a moral obligation to be intransigent: linguistic item A – it was asserted – is just as advantageous as item B, and all homologous features across all languages in time and space are gratuitous variants of one another. Such a view and the matching assertiveness were in line with the tenets of the prevailing behaviorism and especially with its founder’s claim that any child can be trained “to become any type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors (Watson, 1930: 82). And since this socially inspired claim needed empirical support, it was maintained – against all empirical evidence – that changes are circular: A becomes B at one time and in one place, while B morphs back to A elsewhere and at another time, senselessly driven by humankind’s whimsical character. A graphic presentation of this view was made by Postal, who submitted “that there is no more reason for languages to change than there is for automobiles to add fins one year and remove them the next” (1968: 283). The “game” was indeed changed: the word evolve and its derivatives were banished from linguistics, and change became the canonical word.
在萨丕尔、叶斯柏森及其线性模型之后，出现了一个改变格局的因素，带来了新的价值观与评判标准。假设在语言 L 中，特征 A 演变为 B，而在语言 K 中 A 保持不变。若 B 被明确认定比 A 具有显著优势，人们担忧，别有用心的煽动者会声称 K 是劣于 L 的语言，并进而推论 K 的使用者是劣等群体。这种助长有害意识形态的隐忧改变了辩论基调，并确立了新的前提。主张“可能存在微弱优势”的一方态度温和，而反对者则认为坚持不妥协是道德义务：他们宣称，语言要素 A 与 B 同样有利，时空范围内所有语言的同源特征都是彼此无意义的变体。这种观点及其坚定主张与当时盛行的行为主义信条一致，尤其是其创始人约翰·华生的观点：任何儿童都可以被训练“成为我所选择的任何类型的专家——医生、律师、艺术家、商界领袖，甚至乞丐或小偷，无论其天赋、爱好、倾向、能力、职业和祖先种族如何”（Watson, 1930：82）。由于这一受社会因素驱动的主张需要实证支持，尽管缺乏任何实证依据，学界仍坚持认为语言变化是循环的：某时某地 A 变为 B，而在他时他地 B 又变回 A，这一过程受人类反复无常的性格驱动，毫无意义。波斯塔尔生动地阐述了这一观点：“语言变化的理由，与汽车某年加装尾翼、次年又拆除尾翼的理由别无二致”（1968：283）。“游戏规则”确实改变了：“进化（evolve）”及其派生词被逐出语言学领域，“变化（change）”成为规范术语。

1.3. The nativist framework

1.3. 天赋论框架

This egalitarian conception of linguistic features would soon become enshrined in a powerful new theory that took linguistics by storm. All natural languages – it is stated – have a core grammar that is universal. That grammar is coded in our genes and becomes expressed during the language acquisition period in the form of the language(s) spoken around the child (Chomsky, 1970: 450). Language is a steady state entity; the differences between languages are irrelevant, and changes are gratuitous (Chomsky, 1980: 37).
这种语言特征的平等主义观念很快被纳入一种极具影响力的新理论，该理论席卷了语言学界。该理论指出，所有自然语言都拥有普遍的核心语法。这种语法编码在人类基因中，在语言习得期以儿童周围环境中的语言形式显现（Chomsky, 1970：450）。语言是稳态实体，语言间的差异无关紧要，变化也毫无意义（Chomsky, 1980：37）。

Languages may use verbs of state or adjectives, aspect or tense, ergative or nominative argument alignment, flexional markers or free grammatical morphemes, quantitative or qualitative vowel distinctions, consonantal systems poor or rich in fricatives. All possible alternatives are indeed possible and, in the eyes of the new pundits, equally advantageous. That the shift in the above-mentioned alternative pairs has always been from the former to the latter and under normal circumstances never in the opposite direction was either going unnoticed or was simply left out as unimportant or irrelevant. Instead, efforts were made to find would be counterexamples and argue that changes are circular, but such efforts were doomed to fail as it occurred in the case of Chinese word order. Li and Thompson (1974) argued that Chinese word order was reverting from SVO to SOV. But Sun and Givón (1985) responded with a rebuttal showing that Chinese, quite to the contrary, was reinforcing its SVO word order.
语言可能使用状态动词或形容词、体或时、作格或主格论元配位、屈折标记或自由语法语素、元音的数量或质量区分、擦音贫乏或丰富的辅音系统。所有可能的替代形式都是可行的，且在新权威看来具有同等优势。上述替代对中的变化始终是从前项到后项，正常情况下绝不会反向发生——这一事实要么被忽视，要么被视为无关紧要而搁置。相反，学界致力于寻找所谓反例以论证变化的循环性，但此类尝试注定失败，汉语语序的案例便是如此。李讷与汤普森（1974）（Li and Thompson (1974)）认为汉语语序正从 SVO 回归 SOV，但孙朝奋与吉冯（1985）（Sun and Givón (1985)）的反驳表明，汉语恰恰在强化其 SVO 语序。

With or without empirical support, the nativist theory and parallel schools of thought with a social concern continued to postulate that changes are circular and the process gratuitous. The concept of evolution was thereby excluded from the study of natural languages and that of their features. The word evolution had thus become available for a different use, and it began denoting the biological process whereby the inarticulate ancestor of ours had become endowed with speech. Today, in mainstream linguistics, language evolution no longer denotes the course of linguistic features morphing into alternatives with greater selective advantages, but the nebulous set of phylogenetic events that made us loquens.
无论是否有实证支持，天赋论及具有社会考量的相关学派仍坚持认为，语言变化是循环的、无意义的。演化概念由此被排除在自然语言及其特征的研究之外。“进化（evolution）”一词进而被赋予新的用途，开始指代人类无语言祖先获得语言能力的生物学过程。如今在主流语言学中，“语言进化（language evolution）”不再指语言特征向具有更强选择优势的替代形式演变的过程，而是指代使人类成为“会说话的物种（loquens）”的一系列模糊的种系发生事件。

2. The quest of the Grail

2. 圣杯的追寻

The study of language evolution bio style became popular, attracting scientists from cultural and physical anthropology and from all the fields of biology that deal with the central and peripheral speech organs – the language areas of the brain and the components of the vocal tract. On the whole, these scientists were not trained linguists – certainly not as historical linguists – and whether or not they formally subscribed to the tenets of the nativist theory, their underlying assumption was that language had been brought about by a watershed event whereby a speechless ape had become endowed with language. On the ancestral side of the divide, it was assumed to have been a state of total mutism and on the descending side one of complete loquacity and full-blown language. The challenge was to find what that portentous event could have been.
生物视角的语言进化研究逐渐兴起，吸引了来自文化人类学、体质人类学以及所有研究中枢与外周发声器官（大脑语言区与声道组件）的生物学领域的科学家。总体而言，这些科学家并非受过专业训练的语言学家——更非历史语言学家——无论他们是否正式认同天赋论信条，其核心假设都是：语言源于一次决定性事件，使无语言的类人猿获得了语言能力。在这一划分的祖先一侧，假设是完全沉默的状态；而在后代一侧，则是完全能言善辩且语言成熟的状态。核心挑战在于找出这一重大事件的具体所指。

2.1. The language emergence scenarios

2.1. 语言起源场景

One of the pioneers in this field was Philip Lieberman who concentrated his research on the height of the larynx in humans and Neanderthals. Having come to the conclusion that the larynx occupies a lower position in humans, and that a larger supralaryngeal volume is more propitious for a broader gamut of vowels, he went on to argue that the lowering of the larynx was the watershed event that, on the one hand, endowed Homo sapiens with the vocal tract configuration needed for optimal language and, on the other, marked the beginning of the demise of the Neanderthals, to whom he attributed a lesser form of language.
该领域的先驱之一是菲利普·利伯曼，他专注于研究人类与尼安德特人的喉头高度。他得出结论：人类的喉头位置更低，更大的喉上容积更有利于产生更广泛的元音。进而认为，喉头下降是决定性事件——一方面，它赋予智人（Homo sapiens）最优语言所需的声道结构；另一方面，它标志着尼安德特人衰落的开始，利伯曼认为尼安德特人仅拥有初级语言形式。

In his groundbreaking article he and his co-author wrote: “Neanderthal man thus represents an intermediate stage in the evolution of language. This indicates that the evolution of language was gradual, that it was not an abrupt phenomenon” (Lieberman and Crelin, 1971: 221). But contrary to their claim, their scenario does imply a jump, indeed two jumps: one at the anatomical level from a high to a low larynx and another at the corollary linguistic level from “some form of language” to “fully developed ‘articulate’ speech.”
他与合著者在开创性论文中写道：“因此，尼安德特人代表了语言进化的中间阶段。这表明语言进化是渐进的，并非突发现象”（Lieberman and Crelin, 1971：221）。但与他们的主张相反，其场景隐含着跳跃——事实上是两次跳跃：一次是解剖学层面从高位喉头到低位喉头的跳跃，另一次是相应的语言学层面从“某种语言形式”到“完全发达的‘清晰’言语”的跳跃。

Aside from the fact that the descent of the larynx is not an exclusively human feature and probably a source of selective advantages that are not primarily linguistic (cf. Fitch, 2010: 321 et sq.), the Lieberman and Crelin scenario is vitiated by the fact that they posit two distinct hermetic languages: the tentative Neanderthal model constrained by the speakers’ limited supralaryngeal space and the up-to-par alternative made possible by a more speech-suitable vocal tract. It is a freely assembled scenario without any support whatsoever from the evolution of languages, which were built piece by piece on the basis of their sensory experience and the contributing efforts of mental processes.
此外，喉头下降并非人类独有特征，其选择优势可能并非主要体现在语言层面（参见 Fitch, 2010：321 及以下）。利伯曼与克林的场景还存在一个缺陷：他们假设存在两种完全孤立的语言——受限于有限喉上空间的尼安德特人初级语言模型，以及由更适合言语的声道支持的成熟语言模型。这一场景纯属主观构建，缺乏任何语言进化的实证支持——语言是基于感官经验和心智过程的逐步积累而构建的。

There is also no empirical support for Bickerton’s two-step saltationist scenario. Whereas Lieberman and Crelin had specifically linked the alleged emergence of “fully developed articulate language” to their claim of a descended larynx, Bickerton argued that our hominid ancestors were endowed with a form of language lacking “most of the formal properties” of the standard human model. He called this “primitive” form of language “protolanguage” and likened it to the alternative used by humans when they “are ill, exhausted, drunk, or merely impatient” (1990: 118 and 124). Then, as Homo became sapiens, protolanguage became language, and it became mature language in one go since in his eyes “there is no evidence that language developed gradually” (1990: 165). Chomsky does not posit a two-step protolanguage-language scenario, but also suggests that full-blown language emerged as Homo became sapiens (cf. inter al. 1995: 167).
比克顿的两步突变论场景同样缺乏实证支持。利伯曼与克林将所谓“完全发达的清晰语言”的出现与喉头下降直接关联，而比克顿则认为，人类祖先的语言形式缺乏标准人类语言的“大部分形式特征”。他将这种“原始”语言形式称为“原始语（protolanguage）”，并将其比作人类“生病、疲惫、醉酒或仅仅是不耐烦时”使用的表达形式（1990：118、124）。随后，当人属（Homo）进化为智人（sapiens）时，原始语一跃成为成熟语言——在他看来，“没有证据表明语言是渐进发展的”（1990：165）。乔姆斯基并未提出原始语 - 语言的两步模型，但也认为成熟语言是在人属进化为智人时出现的（例如 1995：167）。

2.2. Language from steady state to evolutionary development

2.2. 从稳态到进化发展的语言

Contrary to the foregoing assumptions, language is not a steady state entity that emerged as a whole as Homo became sapiens, and that remained frozen thereafter. The lineages of linguistic features leave no doubt that from as far back as we can reach, linguistic features have proceeded along an evolutionary course, constantly morphing into alternatives with greater selective advantages. Linguists cannot admittedly reach as far back as the ultimate speech sound, the ultimate word, or the ultimate structure. But they can reconstruct undocumented ancestral languages, called protolanguages, by comparing their sibling derivatives – that was the project of comparative grammarians such as Schleicher and Meillet mentioned above. They can also reconstruct internally by surmising that a given reconstructed feature is itself a derivative of an even earlier undocumented item. The most celebrated case is that of the “co-efficients sonantiques” that Saussure posited to account for unexpected occurrences of long vowels (1879). The positing of abstract undocumented items was first met with skepticism, but Saussure was later vindicated with the discovery of laryngeals in Hittite (Kuryłowicz, 1927). Finally and perhaps most importantly, linguists can extrapolate segments from vernaculars of technologically less developed populations and place them even before the oldest reconstructions (See also Bichakjian, 2012 and 2014).
与上述假设相反，语言并非在人属进化为智人时整体出现且此后保持不变的稳态实体。语言特征的演变脉络毫无疑问地表明，自我们所能追溯的最远古时期起，语言特征就沿着进化路径发展，不断向具有更强选择优势的替代形式转变。诚然，语言学家无法追溯到最初的语音、最初的词汇或最初的结构，但他们可以通过比较同源衍生语言，重建未被记录的祖先语言（即原始语）——这正是上述施莱歇尔、梅耶等比较语法学家的研究课题。他们还可以通过内部重建，推测某一已重建特征本身是更早的未记录特征的衍生物。最著名的案例是索绪尔提出的“响音系数（co-efficients sonantiques）”，用以解释长元音的意外出现（1879）。这种抽象未记录要素的假设最初遭到质疑，但后来赫梯语中喉音的发现证实了索绪尔的观点（Kuryłowicz, 1927）。最后，或许也是最重要的一点，语言学家可以从技术欠发达群体的方言中提取片段，并将其置于最古老的重建形式之前（另见 Bichakjian, 2012；2014）。

By combining the historical record with the depth provided by extrapolation, linguists can produce an evolutionary track that reveals the changes that have marked the development of major linguistic features. So, will it be observed inter alia that
通过将历史记录与外推法提供的深度相结合，语言学家可以构建一条进化轨迹，揭示主要语言特征发展过程中的关键变化。其中尤其值得注意的是：

• grammatical aspect has given way to tense as the dominant verbal distinction,

  语法体已让位于时，成为动词的主要区分维度；

• verbs of state have morphed into adjectives,

  状态动词已演变为形容词；

• grammatical number was invented and perfected,

  语法数范畴被创造并完善；

• agent and patient have been supplanted by subject and object,

  施事与受事已被主语与宾语取代；

• free grammatical morphemes have developed and replaced flectional markers,

  自由语法语素已发展并取代屈折标记；

• word order has shifted from head-last to head-first,

  语序已从中心语后置转变为中心语前置；

• and speech sounds have migrated from the glotto-pharyngeal area to the more forward parts of the vocal tract.

  语音已从声门 - 咽腔区域迁移至声道更靠前的部位。

Just as not all anthropoids have become humans, not all these changes have taken place everywhere or at the same rate or yielded the exact same output. And just as we sometimes use candles instead of electrical light, we sometimes use with relish an archaic form instead of its modern equivalent. But the trend is everywhere the same and the course in normal circumstances is irreversible (See Bichakjian 2002 for an extended discussion).
正如并非所有类人猿都进化为人类一样，这些变化并非在所有地区都以相同速度发生，也并非产生完全相同的结果。正如我们有时会用蜡烛而非电灯，我们有时也会偏爱使用古体形式而非现代对应形式。但总体趋势在各地都是一致的，且正常情况下该进程是不可逆的（详见 Bichakjian 2002 的深入探讨）。

That the above changes, which represent fundamental transformations of linguistic systems, are unidirectional is hardly contentious. They are part of the historical record and the counterexamples are not only very rare, but also otherwise accountable. What may seem contentious is their being considered “evolutionary.” Though there is no unanimity on how to define “evolution,” there is a large consensus about the relative amount of selective advantages. Deleterious mutations can of course occur or even be engineered (cf. e.g., the bulldog’s deformed nose), but an evolutionary change is normally one where the output has greater advantages than the input. The shift in biology from cold-bloodedness to warm-bloodedness is an evolutionary change, not because it is unidirectional and irreversible, but because endothermy has greater selective advantages than ectothermy. The input, as in this case, can have advantages of its own – ectotherms can go much longer without food – but the advantages of the output must be greater, and that is also the case of body temperature – endotherms must have food more frequently, but they can achieve much more with their constantly fueled brain.
上述代表语言系统根本性转变的变化具有单向性，这一点几乎无可争议。它们是历史记录的一部分，反例不仅极为罕见，且均可通过其他方式解释。可能存在争议的是这些变化是否属于“进化性”变化。尽管“进化”的定义尚未达成共识，但学界对“选择优势的相对程度”存在广泛共识。有害突变固然可能发生（甚至可被人为设计，例如斗牛犬畸形的鼻子），但进化性变化通常是指结果比初始状态具有更强优势的变化。生物学中从变温到恒温的转变是进化性变化，并非因为其单向不可逆，而是因为恒温比变温具有更强的选择优势。初始状态（变温）固然有其自身优势——变温动物可在更长时间内不进食——但结果状态（恒温）的优势必须更显著：恒温动物需更频繁进食，但持续供能的大脑使其能实现更多功能。

While natural selection, being the cornerstone of the currently accepted theory of evolution, cannot be disputed, the superiority of the mutants’ selective advantages is not always easy to establish and express it quantitatively. There is no universal gage. This deficiency is sometimes circumvented through circular reasoning. If A consistently changes into B and B never reverts to A, B “must” have selective advantages that A does not have. Hence the conclusion: A changed to B because B (presumably) has greater selective advantages than A. That is how unidirectionality is made to explain unidirectionality and unidirectional changes are classified as evolutionary. Circular reasoning is of course epistemologically objectionable, but rather than a mere epistemological flaw, the apparent circular reasoning can be seen as an incentive to find the selective advantages of the output and make the reasoning logical. That is how biologists proceed (cf. Gould, 1979), but unfortunately, the very notion of selective advantage remains foreign to linguistics, let alone the attempts to investigate it.
自然选择作为当前公认的进化理论核心，其地位无可争议，但突变体选择优势的优越性并非总能轻易确定并量化表达——不存在通用衡量标准。这一缺陷有时会通过循环推理来规避：若 A 始终变为 B，而 B 从未变回 A，则 B“必定”具有 A 所不具备的选择优势。由此得出结论：A 变为 B 是因为 B（据推测）比 A 具有更强的选择优势。这便是用单向性解释单向性，并将单向变化归类为进化性变化的逻辑。循环推理在认识论上固然存在问题，但这种表面的循环推理并非单纯的认识论缺陷，而可被视为一种动力，促使人们去探寻结果状态的选择优势，使推理变得合理。生物学家正是这样做的（参见 Gould, 1979），但遗憾的是，选择优势这一概念在语言学中仍属陌生，更不用说对其进行研究了。

The evolutionary method has remained foreign to linguistics because mainstream linguists have been adamantly hanging on to the idea that all homologous features are equally functional and that all changes are therefore gratuitous. Within such a theoretical framework, head-last word order is – allegedly – just as functional as its symmetrical counterpart; ergative alignment is not a lesser syntactic tool than its nominative successor; flectional markers are no less propitious devices than free grammatical morphemes such as auxiliaries and prepositions (Nichols, 1992: 276–77). The underlying reasoning is based on the following supposedly clinching argument: if language is about getting a message across, any grammatical strategy that successfully gets the message across cannot be less worthy than any other (Pinker, 1995: 27). Hence, the allegation that since language L uses one and language L′ the other, head-last and head-first word orders are equally advantageous and the shift from one to the other, though pervasive and unidirectional, has no evolutionary significance. The same rhetoric, when applied to species, would generate the claim that since crocodiles and lions successfully cope with their respective environment, procure food, and produce a progeny, reptilians and mammals are not to be ranked in an evolutionary sequence. But biologists would hardly use such rhetoric today!
进化方法之所以未能进入语言学领域，是因为主流语言学家固执地认为，所有同源特征都具有同等功能，因此所有变化都是无意义的。在这一理论框架下，中心语后置语序据称与中心语前置语序功能相当；作格配位并不逊色于其后续的主格配位；屈折标记与助动词、介词等自由语法语素同样有效（Nichols, 1992：276–277）。其核心推理基于以下所谓的决定性论点：若语言的目的是传递信息，则任何能成功传递信息的语法策略都具有同等价值（Pinker, 1995：27）。因此，他们声称，既然语言 L 使用一种语序，语言 L′ 使用另一种，那么中心语后置与中心语前置语序具有同等优势，尽管这种转变普遍且单向，但并无进化意义。若将同样的逻辑应用于物种，便会得出：既然鳄鱼与狮子都能成功适应环境、获取食物并繁衍后代，那么爬行动物与哺乳动物不应被置于进化序列中排序——但如今生物学家绝不会使用这样的逻辑！

Sadly enough, linguistics is trailing biology, and biologists seem more concerned with the biological specificity of evolution rather than its universal application. Dobzhansky had the wisdom to state unequivocally that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” One can only hope that that light will soon also shine in linguistics, making it possible for the respective advantages of homologous linguistic features to be investigated and compared. It will then be seen how things make sense in linguistics and how languages evolve.
遗憾的是，语言学落后于生物学，而生物学家似乎更关注进化的生物学特异性，而非其普遍适用性。杜布赞斯基曾睿智地明确指出：“若无进化之光，生物学中一切都无从谈起。”我们只能希望这束光早日照亮语言学领域，使同源语言特征的各自优势能够被研究和比较。届时，语言学中的诸多现象将变得清晰，语言的进化机制也将得以揭示。

3. A matter of cross-fertilization

3. 交叉渗透的问题

The evolution of linguistic features clearly suggests that language as a whole has been driven by a gradual evolutionary process, but in the literature it is often implied that language appeared and promptly became full-blown when a sine qua non condition was met. That condition could be anatomical, such as the would-be lowering of the larynx (cf. supra) or the enlargement of the hypoglossal nerve, a feature tentatively considered by Matt Cartmill and his team (Kay et al. 1998), but unable to withstand broader testing (DeGusta et al., 1999). It can also be mental, such as “the core computational mechanisms of recursion” advocated by Hauser et al. (2002: 1573) and disputed by Pinker and Jackendoff (2005: 227).
语言特征的进化明确表明，语言整体是由渐进式进化过程驱动的，但文献中常暗示，当某一必要条件满足时，语言便会突然出现并迅速成熟。这一条件可能是解剖学层面的，例如喉头下降（参见上文）或舌下神经增大——马特·卡特米尔及其团队曾初步探讨这一特征（Kay et al. 1998），但该观点未能经受更广泛的检验（DeGusta et al., 1999）。也可能是心智层面的，例如豪泽等人（2002）主张的“递归核心计算机制”（Hauser et al. (2002：1573），而平克与杰克逊多夫（2005）对此提出质疑（Pinker and Jackendoff (2005：227）。

But the evolution of language belies such a two-step model, a model whereby first language readiness would be achieved and then language would evolve. Language readiness was not a precondition; it has been a parallel development. The potential for language and language itself developed through parallel and mutually fertilizing processes. Language was built piece by piece, but not like Esperanto, which was the work of a person with linguistic models and a linguistically wired brain. Language was built by a population with a prelinguistic brain and on the basis of prelinguistic mapping principles. With each step that was made in the construction of language, the corresponding step was made at the supporting neurological level. When the first word was uttered, the incipient speakers’ brains were linguistically blank; their brains were only wired for the perception and cataloging of sensory objects and events. It’s on the basis of that strong experience – experience to which they owed their survival – that they endowed themselves with language by creating it. The cross-fertilization process fostering the evolution of the brain and that of linguistic features has a putative equivalent in the history of writing, which can provide a comparative illustration.
但语言进化驳斥了这种两步模型——即先实现语言准备状态，再进行语言进化。语言准备状态并非先决条件，而是与语言进化并行发展的过程。语言潜能与语言本身通过并行且相互促进的过程共同发展。语言是逐步构建的，但并非像世界语那样——由一个具备语言模型和语言化大脑的人创造。语言是由拥有前语言大脑的群体，基于前语言映射原则构建的。语言构建的每一步，都伴随着相应的神经层面支持。当第一个词被说出时，早期说话者的大脑在语言层面是空白的；他们的大脑仅能感知和分类感官对象与事件。正是基于这种关乎生存的丰富经验，他们通过创造语言赋予了自己语言能力。促进大脑进化与语言特征进化的交叉渗透过程，在文字史上存在一个推测性的对应现象，可作为比较例证。

In itself, the evolution of linguistic features is nothing unusual. It is as elsewhere the pursuit of greater efficiency, the quest of the highest yield for the lowest expenditure. We have started with improvised implements made of immediately available sensory items and we have applied our intelligence to develop ever more efficient alternatives. That’s how, after a long evolution, palm-size stones have become smart bombs, how smoke signals and carrier pigeons have paved the way to smart phones, how draft animals have been replaced with ever-more powerful sources of energy. Since the identical process has been at work in the evolution of linguistic features, be it performed intuitively rather than with explicit intent (Sapir, 1949: 155), the evolution of ballistic weaponry or the evolution of vectors of communication could provide a useful illustration of how linguistic features pursued their course. But illustrating it with the evolution of writing has an especially relevant advantage. The putative correlation between the evolution of writing from figurative hieroglyphs to abstract letters and the reversal of the writing direction from right-to-left to left-to-right on the one hand, and the cerebral organization of writing systems on the other (cf. infra) could be useful for the investigation of the hemispheric distribution of language as it evolved.
语言特征的进化本身并无特别之处，正如其他领域一样，其核心是追求更高效率，以最小投入获得最大产出。我们从利用现有感官材料制作的即兴工具起步，运用智慧开发出日益高效的替代方案。经过漫长进化，手掌大小的石块演变为智能炸弹，烟雾信号与信鸽为智能手机铺平了道路，役畜被更强大的能源所取代——语言特征的进化遵循同样的过程，尽管这一过程是直觉性的，而非刻意为之（Sapir, 1949：155）。因此，弹道武器的进化或通信媒介的进化都可作为有益例证，说明语言特征的发展路径。但以文字进化为例具有特别的相关优势：文字从具象象形文字到抽象字母的进化、书写方向从右到左到从左到右的逆转，与书写系统的大脑组织之间的推测性关联（参见下文），有助于研究语言进化过程中的大脑半球分布。

4. The evolution of writing

4. 文字的进化

The first attempts to consign meaning to material support were figurative or representational. The history of the Latin alphabet, which has become today’s most commonly used writing system, started some five millennia ago with the pictographic hieroglyphs of Egypt and consistently morphed into ever more abstract alternatives.
人类首次尝试将意义赋予物质载体的方式是具象的或表征性的。如今最常用的拉丁字母表，其历史可追溯至约五千年前的埃及象形文字，并不断演变为日益抽象的形式。

4.1. A pictographic beginning

4.1. 象形文字的开端

The original writing system used figurative symbols. If for the sake of an illustration it is assumed that the pharaohs spoke English, the drawing of a dog would have stood in the first place for the word dog, the lexical label of our canine pet. But, through semantic extension and with the proper determinative marker, it could also have stood for the word fidelity, which denotes the virtue commonly associated with canines. Fido’s drawing could also have played a phonetic role by providing the first syllable of the word dogmatic in a rebus, or simply the word initial consonantal sound /d/. So, already in the initial phases of writing there was some abstract thinking as ingenuity was used to solve the problem of finding a graphic representation for an abstract referent, but hieroglyphic writing was essentially pictographic.
最初的文字系统使用具象符号。为便于说明，假设法老们说英语，那么一幅狗的图画最初会代表“狗（dog）”这个词——我们犬类宠物的词汇标签。但通过语义扩展并加上适当的限定符号，它也可代表“忠诚（fidelity）”——这一与犬类密切相关的美德。这幅狗的图画还可发挥表音作用：在字谜中代表“教条的（dogmatic）”一词的第一个音节，或仅代表词首辅音 /d/。因此，尽管在文字的初始阶段，人们已运用智慧为抽象指称寻找图形表征，存在一定的抽象思维，但象形文字本质上仍是具象的。

The other distinguishing feature of the hieroglyphic model was the writing order. The situation was comparable to languages with so-called free word order. These are not languages where any order is the gratuitous alternative of any other. Germ. Hübsch ist sie nicht does not send the same message as Sie ist nicht hübsch. The English equivalent of the first sentence would be approximately ‘beauty is not one of her assets,’ while the second sentence simply means ‘she is not beautiful.’ Free word order languages are not languages without canonical order – they simply have the freedom to deviate from the canonical order when the proper motivation exists. For hieroglyphs the vertical order was from top to bottom, and the horizontal one could vary. Depending on the shape of the material support or the representation of a scene, the order could be from right to left or left to right or an alternation of the two to reflect the flow of a dialog, but from right to left was the unmarked horizontal order on monumental surfaces and the only one on papyrus scrolls.
象形文字模型的另一个显著特征是书写方向。这一情况类似于所谓的“自由语序”语言——但自由语序并非指任何语序都是无意义的替代形式。德语中，“Hübsch ist sie nicht”与“Sie ist nicht hübsch”传递的信息不同：第一句的英语对应表达大致是“美丽并非她的优点之一”，而第二句仅表示“她不漂亮”。自由语序语言并非没有标准语序，而是在有适当动机时，可偏离标准语序。象形文字的垂直书写方向为自上而下，水平方向则可灵活变化：根据载体形状或场景表现需要，可从右到左、从左到右，或两种方向交替以体现对话流程。但在纪念性建筑上，水平书写的无标记方向是从右到左，而纸莎草卷轴上则仅采用这一方向。

4.2. From pictogram to alphabet

4.2. 从象形文字到字母表

Over the millennia, as writing became more and more cursive, hieroglyphs were stylized and simplified, and right to left became the standard writing order. The system remained, however, ideogrammatic – the symbols represented the referents, not the referents’ lexical labels. The major evolutionary change would come from the Phoenicians. Some two millennia after the birth of writing, the scribes of a successful nation of seafarers extracted out of the existing array of more than 700 hieroglyphs a parsimonious set of 22 letters. These were all consonants – more was not needed since Phoenician, being a Semitic language, consigns meaning mainly to sets of consonants and uses diacritic marks for vowels. With the recasting of the Egyptian ideogrammatic hieroglyphs into the purely phonetic letters of the Phoenician language, a true Rubicon had been crossed, but two more steps were needed to complete the evolutionary process. Those two steps came from the Greeks: On the one hand, they introduced segmental signs for vowels, thereby making the phonetic representation of words complete and completely linear; and, on the other, after toying for a time with the eye-pleasing but totally impractical boustrophedon, a writing style with alternating right-to-left and left-to-right lines, they opted definitively for the left to right order. The modern writing method was born with letters representing vowels and consonants and a writing style from left to right (cf. Gaur, 1984 for the history of writing and Bichakjian, 2002: 221–58 for a presentation in an evolutionary perspective).
数千年来，随着书写日益潦草，象形文字逐渐程式化和简化，从右到左成为标准书写方向。但该系统仍是表意的——符号代表指称对象本身，而非其词汇标签。重大的进化性变革来自腓尼基人。在文字诞生约两千年后，这个成功的航海民族的抄写员从现有的 700 多个象形文字中，提炼出一套简洁的 22 个字母。这些字母均为辅音——这已足够，因为腓尼基语作为闪米特语，主要通过辅音组合承载意义，元音则用变音符号表示。将埃及表意象形文字重塑为腓尼基语纯表音字母，这是一次真正的跨越，但仍需两步才能完成进化过程。这两步由希腊人完成：一方面，他们引入元音音段符号，使单词的语音表征完整且完全线性化；另一方面，他们曾短暂尝试一种美观但完全不实用的书写方式——换行交替书写法（boustrophedon），即一行从右到左、下一行从左到右交替，随后最终确定采用从左到右的书写方向。代表元音和辅音的字母，加之从左到右的书写方式，标志着现代书写方法的诞生（文字史详见 Gaur, 1984；进化视角的论述详见 Bichakjian, 2002：221–258）。

The two developments that therefore characterize the evolution of writing are
因此，文字进化的两个核心特征是：

1. the shift from gestalt-like figurative hieroglyphs to abstract analytical letters, and
2. 从格式塔式具象象形文字向抽象分析性字母的转变；
3. the reversal of the writing direction from right-to-left to left-to-right.
4. 书写方向从右到左向左到右的逆转。

Since hieroglyphic writing is used in Chinese, where it has the undeniable advantage of making reading possible across a vast array of mutually unintelligible dialects, and since the Semitic languages, which are the vectors of a rich civilization, are written from right to left, the two steps that paved the way to the Greek and thence the Latin alphabet may seem no more than cultural idiosyncrasies. But such is not the case. These two changes embody a major evolutionary development (cf. the above discussion of the respective advantages of cold and warm-blooded organisms ¶ 2.2).
由于汉语仍在使用象形文字（其无可否认的优势是使操各种互不相通方言的人能够阅读），且承载着丰富文明的闪米特语族仍采用从右到左的书写方向，因此通向希腊字母进而拉丁字母的这两步，似乎仅仅是文化特异性。但事实并非如此——这两项变化体现了重大的进化发展（参见上文 2.2 节关于变温与恒温生物各自优势的讨论）。

4.3. From the right to the left hemisphere

4.3. 从右半球到左半球

There is strong evidence from traumatology and reading pathology (Skoyles, 1984: 409 and Ferretti et al., 2008) suggesting that the gestalt-like perception used in reading ideograms is an activity characteristic of the right hemisphere, while the analytical processing of alphabetic writing is a trademark of the left hemisphere. There is also evidence suggesting that the hemispheres scan in the contralateral directions: the right hemisphere leftward, the left hemisphere rightward (Skoyles, 1988: 370 and Posner and Raichle, 1994: 159). Since pictograms are right hemispheric material and since the right hemisphere scans leftward, it is only logical that hieroglyphic writing was done from right to left.
创伤学与阅读病理学的大量证据表明（Skoyles, 1984：409；Ferretti et al., 2008），表意文字阅读所依赖的格式塔感知是右半球的特征性活动，而字母文字的分析性加工则是左半球的标志。另有证据表明，大脑两半球的扫描方向相反：右半球向左扫描，左半球向右扫描（Skoyles, 1988：370；Posner and Raichle, 1994：159）。由于象形文字是右半球处理的材料，且右半球向左扫描，因此象形文字采用从右到左的书写方向是合乎逻辑的。

But as the Phoenicians replaced the Egyptian pictograms with sequences of consonantal letters, and the Greeks completed the process by adding segmental signs for the vowels, the original writing system became abstract and its process completely analytical, therefore fully suitable for left hemispheric control. The Greek reversal of the writing direction is not a cultural idiosyncrasy, but, one may safely surmise, the sign that the neural control of writing, which had been in the right hemisphere when writing was hieroglyphic, had moved to the left hemisphere as writing was becoming alphabetic. The development was mutually advantageous, with the left hemisphere and writing having entered in a cross-fertilizing spiral whereby the left hemisphere made reading and writing more efficient by making it left-to-right, and by being left-to-right, reading and writing consolidated the role of the left hemisphere as the brain’s writing center.
但随着腓尼基人用辅音字母序列取代埃及象形文字，希腊人通过添加元音音段符号完成这一进程，原始文字系统变得抽象，其加工过程完全具备分析性，因此完全适配左半球的控制。希腊人对书写方向的逆转并非文化特异性，而是可以合理推测的信号：当文字为象形文字时，书写的神经控制位于右半球；而随着文字向字母化转变，这一控制已转移至左半球。这一发展是互利共赢的——左半球与文字进入交叉渗透螺旋：左半球通过确立从左到右的方向，提高了读写效率；而从左到右的读写方式，又巩固了左半球作为大脑书写中枢的地位。

5. The evolution of language

5. 语言的进化

The foregoing presentation of the evolution of writing from concrete to abstract implements was meant to serve as a tangible illustration of the evolution of language. Like writing, language was built step by step and it was built by a population without a linguistically prewired brain. Unlike the creator of Esperanto and also unlike Kanzi, Alex the parrot, and the Hungarian dogs recently in the news (Andics et al. 2016), the incipient speakers did not have access to constituted language. The only linguistic material to which they had access was what they were creating. And the creating was done through two mutually fertilizing processes. The left hemisphere was solicited to produce linguistic material for the construction of a linguistic system and the production of linguistic material was consolidating the role of the left hemisphere in linguistic matters. That’s how language came about and how the left hemisphere further specialized.
上述关于文字从具体工具向抽象工具进化的论述，旨在为语言进化提供一个具体例证。与文字一样，语言是逐步构建的，且由不具备先天语言神经连接的群体所创造。不同于世界语的创造者，也不同于坎兹（倭黑猩猩）、亚历克斯（鹦鹉）以及近期新闻中提到的匈牙利犬（Andics et al. 2016），早期说话者并未接触过成熟的语言系统。他们唯一能利用的语言材料，正是自己正在创造的内容。这一创造过程通过两个相互促进的进程实现：左半球被调动起来，生成构建语言系统所需的语言材料；而语言材料的生成，又巩固了左半球在语言事务中的作用。语言正是这样产生的，左半球也因此进一步专门化。

5.1. The coinage of nouns and verbs

5.1. 名词与动词的创造

The building of language went indeed step by step and without a linguistic model, but incipient speakers did not come to the task empty-handed or rather “empty-brained”: They had successfully mapped out the outside world and observed that there are humans and animals, males and females, plants and minerals, and objects in various shapes and consistencies: round and sharp, compact and cord-like, solid and liquid, etc. So, as objects were given a label, the label entered the lexicon marked with the referent’s cataloging feature in the real world. (cf. Jerison, who suggests in substance that “the sensory mappings that we share with other anthropoids as well as most mammals” underlie the mappings of language endowed Homo sapiens [2001: 384]).
语言的构建确实是逐步推进的，且没有现成的语言模型可循，但早期说话者并非“空手”或“空脑”着手这项任务：他们已成功映射了外部世界，观察到人类与动物、男性与女性、植物与矿物，以及各种形状和质地的物体——圆形与尖锐、致密与绳状、固体与液体等。因此，当物体被赋予标签时，该标签会带着其在现实世界中的分类特征进入词汇表。（参见杰瑞森的观点，其核心认为“我们与其他类人猿及大多数哺乳动物共有的感官映射”，是智人（Homo sapiens）语言映射的基础 [2001]：384）。

Language cobblers also labeled the events that were taking place around them and the actions that were performed. There too the need was felt to make a class distinction between active verbs such as kill, which express a willful action deliberately executed by an agent, and stative verbs such as die, which express a process of which one is not the agent, but the patient. In turn, the subcategorization of verbs in active and stative classes required the subcategorization of nouns into capable and incapable of action. Today grammatical class distinction is a feature often found in African languages such as Luganda (cf. Ashton et al. 1954), but insightful internal reconstruction can link the standard Indo-European gender system to an ancestral class system. The neuter nouns’ not having a nominative form is a clear indication that they are to be traced back to stative nouns of an earlier ancestral vernacular, just as the Latin deponents betray their being reflexes of stative verbs.
语言的创造者还为周围发生的事件和所执行的动作赋予了标签。他们同样需要对动词进行分类：一类是如“杀死（kill）”这样的主动动词，表达施事者刻意执行的有意动作；另一类是如“死亡（die）”这样的状态动词，表达并非由施事者发起、而是受事者经历的过程。反过来，动词分为主动类和状态类，要求名词也相应分为“有行动能力”和“无行动能力”两类。如今，语法类属区分是非洲语言（如卢干达语）的常见特征（参见 Ashton et al. 1954），但通过深刻的内部重建可以发现，标准印欧语的性系统与原始的类属系统存在关联。中性名词没有主格形式，这一事实明确表明它们可追溯至早期原始语言中的状态名词；同样，拉丁语的异态动词也表明其是状态动词的遗留形式。

This subcategorization of nouns and verbs according to their sensory features and the ensuing organization of the sentence around the functions of agent and patient clearly indicate that nouns and verbs, like writing, began with a model based on the prelinguistic mapping that incipient speakers had made of the outside world. Writing began with figurative hieroglyphs, the lexicon with sensory features and physical functions.
根据感官特征对名词和动词进行分类，并围绕施事与受事功能组织句子——这一过程明确表明，名词和动词与文字一样，最初都基于早期说话者对外部世界的前语言映射模型。文字始于具象象形文字，词汇则始于感官特征与物理功能。

5.2. The coinage of adjectives

5.2. 形容词的创造

The building of language went on: after the coining and subcategorizing of nouns and verbs came the development of adjectives. There is a reason for the delayed development. Nouns, especially in a language building context, are labels of preexisting referents, but such is not the case of adjectives. Their referents are abstractions produced by the beholder. This makes the coining of adjectives a grade abstracter than that of nouns and verbs and explains the delay. The delayed development of adjectives is further confirmed by the combined existence, on the one hand, of extant languages totally without adjectives (cf. e.g., the Siouan languages of North America) and, on the other, of languages such as Latin where verbs of state can be found serving an adjectival role (cf. albeo ‘to be white’).
语言的构建仍在继续：名词和动词的创造与分类之后，形容词开始发展。形容词的发展滞后是有原因的：名词（尤其是在语言构建初期）是对已有指称对象的标签，而形容词则不同——其指称对象是观察者产生的抽象概念。这使得形容词的创造比名词和动词更抽象，也解释了其发展滞后的现象。形容词发展滞后的进一步证据的是：一方面，现存部分语言完全没有形容词（例如北美苏语族语言）；另一方面，在拉丁语等语言中，状态动词可发挥形容词的作用（例如 albeo“变白”，可表“白色的”）。

5.3. The making of grammatical markers

5.3. 语法标记的创造

Though an added mental operation was necessary for adjectives, the coinage of nouns, verbs, and qualifiers was a relatively easy task for incipient speakers. It was the coinage of words with a semantic content, of words whose referents exist in the outside world or can be derived from existing items. The task of coining grammatical markers was a far greater challenge. It was no longer a matter of labeling items, actions, or properties, but that of finding ways of expressing the gamut of paradigmatic distinctions that apply to content words. The incipient speakers solved the problem with a natural solution: They simply modulated the content words by repeating the entire word, by reduplicating the root or part thereof, or by alternating the main vowel (cf. living fossils such as Ru. drug druga ‘one another’ literally ‘another another;’ Tu. tap-taze, superlative of taze ‘fresh;’ Lat. lĕgit/lēgit ‘(s)he reads/(s)he read’). The next step was the creation of segmental markers, first in the form of suffixes or other bound morphemes and finally in the form of full-fledged function words. Function words, such as articles, pronouns, auxiliaries and the like are also called “empty words,” a descriptive label that expresses their lack of semantic content and can serve to justify their late development. The entire evolutionary sequence of grammatical markers can be illustrated with the present and past tense of the verb sing featuring root modulation in Early Latin, suffixation in Classical Latin and the use of an auxiliary in Modern French.
尽管形容词的创造需要额外的心智操作，但名词、动词和修饰词的创造对早期说话者而言相对容易——它们都是具有语义内容的词汇，其指称对象要么存在于外部世界，要么可从现有事物中衍生。而语法标记的创造则是一项更大的挑战：它不再是对事物、动作或属性的标签化，而是要找到方式表达适用于实义词的一系列聚合关系区分。早期说话者通过自然的方式解决了这一问题：他们对实义词进行调制——重复整个词、重叠词根或词根的一部分，或交替主要元音（例如活化石案例：俄语 drug druga“彼此”，字面意为“另一个 另一个”；土耳其语 tap-taze“最新鲜的”，是 taze“新鲜”的最高级；拉丁语 lĕgit/lēgit“他/她读（现在时）/他/她读（过去时）”）。下一步是创造音段标记：首先是后缀或其他黏着语素，最终发展为成熟的功能词。冠词、代词、助动词等功能词也被称为“虚词”，这一描述性标签体现了它们缺乏语义内容的特点，也解释了其发展滞后的原因。语法标记的完整进化序列可通过动词“唱歌（sing）”的现在时和过去时体现：早期拉丁语采用词根调制，古典拉丁语采用后缀，现代法语则采用助动词。

cano/cecini canto/cantavi je chante/j’ai chanté
cano/cecini（早期拉丁语：唱/唱过） canto/cantavi（古典拉丁语：我唱/我唱过） je chante/j’ai chanté（现代法语：我唱/我唱过）

Since it was originally the intensive variant of cano, canto also represents a case of word modulation with the insertion of -t- being comparable to the modern usage of writing biiiiig for very big.
由于 canto 最初是 cano 的强化变体，因此它也属于词调制的案例——插入 -t- 的做法，类似于现代英语中用 biiiiig 表示“非常大”。

The development of grammatical markers therefore displays a two track process towards greater abstraction. There was, on the one hand, the initial start with root modulation, which subsequently was complemented and to a great extent replaced with segmental alternatives in the form of bound and free morphemes, i.e. suffixes and the like, and function words; and there was, on the other hand, the ipso facto expansion of the lexicon with the coinage of “empty” words. Together, these two compounded developments reflect the putative replacement of right hemispheric strategies with alternatives controlled by the left half of the brain. These developments bring added support to the view that language was built step by step, starting with a sensory model, which was transformed and continuously upgraded by tapping the greater resources of the left hemisphere and by so doing consolidating the latter’s role as the linguistic center of the brain.
因此，语法标记的发展呈现出双向的高度抽象化进程：一方面，始于词根调制，随后逐渐被黏着语素、自由语素（即后缀等）和功能词形式的音段替代形式补充，并在很大程度上被其取代；另一方面，“虚词”的创造实际上扩展了词汇表。这两项复合发展共同反映了一个推测：右半球的处理策略被左半球控制的替代策略所取代。这些发展进一步支持了以下观点：语言是逐步构建的，始于感官模型，通过利用左半球的更多资源不断改造和升级，进而巩固了左半球作为大脑语言中枢的地位。

5.4. From aspect to tense

5.4. 从体到时

While the markers were developing, the grammatical distinctions themselves were undergoing an evolution of their own. One that deserves special mention is that of the verbal system, which originally was exclusively aspectual before becoming predominantly temporal. Meillet called it “the elimination of aspect in favor of tense” and addressing his reader in his characteristic magisterial style added: “This is a fact that cannot be stressed enough” (1952: xii translation provided; see also Diakonoff, 1965: 78 for the Afro-Asiatic family). But let there be no misunderstanding: Aspect has not been eliminated altogether: English makes a clear distinction in the past tense between the perfect I have done and the non-perfect I did just as French, also in the past tense, opposes perfective j’ai fait to imperfective je faisais, but the English and French verbal systems are predominantly temporal and the preceding aspectual distinctions occur within the past tense.
在标记发展的同时，语法区分本身也在经历进化。其中值得特别关注的是动词系统：最初完全以体为核心，后来逐渐转变为以时为核心。梅耶将这一过程称为“体的消亡与时的兴起”，并以其特有的权威风格对读者强调：“这一事实无论如何强调都不为过”（1952：xii，译文为本文所加；非洲 - 亚细亚语族的相关情况参见 Diakonoff, 1965：78）。但需明确的是，体并未完全消亡：英语过去时中明确区分完成体 I have done（我已经做了）和非完成体 I did（我做了）；法语过去时中也区分完成体 j’ai fait（我做了）和未完成体 je faisais（我那时在做）。但英语和法语的动词系统仍以时为核心，上述体的区分仅存在于过去时范畴内。

It is nevertheless correct to stress that aspect as the predominant verbal distinction was eliminated, and it is important for the understanding of the process to recognize that aspect expresses the state of the action and as such a sensory perception, while temporal distinctions express the travel of the mind through time. Aspect is therefore consistent with sensory agent-and-patient syntax, while tense is consistent with mental subject-and-object syntax.
尽管如此，强调“体作为动词的主要区分维度已消亡”仍是正确的。理解这一过程的关键在于：体表达动作的状态，属于感官感知范畴；而时的区分表达心智在时间中的穿梭。因此，体与基于感官的施事 - 受事句法一致，而时则与基于心智的主语 - 宾语句法一致。

5.5. The evolution of syntax

5.5. 句法的进化

5.5.1. From agent and patient to subject and object

5.5.1. 从施事与受事到主语与宾语

The shifts of linguistic features from variants based on sensory criteria to mentally produced alternatives are everywhere to be seen, but perhaps most conspicuously in syntax, where agent and patient have given way to subject and object. Authors writing for a general readership often equate the two syntactic models and reduce the difference to stative verbs having their argument in the patientive and not the agentive case as subject-object language users would expect. German with its conspicuous subject and object markers can provide a clear illustration. In a model sentence such as The hunter killed the wolf, in German,
语言特征从基于感官标准的变体向心智创造的替代形式转变的现象随处可见，而在句法层面最为显著——施事与受事已被主语与宾语取代。面向普通读者的作者常常将这两种句法模型等同，认为其差异仅在于：状态动词的论元在施事 - 受事语言中采用受事格，而非主语 - 宾语语言使用者所预期的施事格。具有明显主宾语标记的德语可提供清晰例证。以“The hunter killed the wolf”（猎人杀死了狼）为例，德语表达为：

Der Jäger getötet den Wolf.
猎人 杀死 狼

Der Jäger would be marked for the subject case and den Wolf for the object case. Likewise, in an agent-patient language, the hunter would be in the agentive case and the wolf in the patientive case. But in the sentence The wolf died, in German,
Der Jäger（猎人）标记为主格，den Wolf（狼）标记为宾格。同样，在施事 - 受事语言中，猎人会标记为施事格，狼标记为受事格。但对于“The wolf died”（狼死了）这一句子，德语表达为：

Der Wolf starb.
狼 死了

subject-object languages put Der Wolf in the subject case, but agent-patient languages put it in the patientive case because in their syntactic system dying is not considered a deliberate action and the verb to die is not an active, but a stative verb, and “by statute” stative verbs have no agents, but patients. It is as if German speakers would be saying:
主语 - 宾语语言中，Der Wolf（狼）标记为主格；但在施事 - 受事语言中，它会标记为受事格——因为在该句法系统中，“死亡”并非刻意的动作，“死（to die）”并非主动动词，而是状态动词，且“按规则”状态动词没有施事，只有受事。这就好比德语使用者会说：

Den Wolf starb.
狼（宾格） 死了

instead of the canonical Der Wolf starb. Actually, it is as if German speakers would be saying
而非标准表达 Der Wolf starb（狼（主格） 死了）。实际上，这更像是德语使用者会说：

De Wolf starb.
狼（通格） 死了

because in the patientive case, words were in their absolutive form, i.e. without grammatical markers, this in sharp contrast with the agentive case, where nouns were marked with the agentive suffix. There are reasons to surmise that the final -s sound of Latin words such as rex ‘king’ is a survival of an earlier agentive suffix. And since the Latin deponents are the former stative verbs, it is possible to imagine that when the Romans’ remote ancestors spoke a language that was in an agent-patient phase ‘the wolf died’ was said something like
因为在受事格中，词汇采用通格形式，即无语法标记——这与施事格形成鲜明对比，施事格中的名词会带有施事后缀。有理由推测，拉丁语中 rex（国王）等词末尾的 -s 音，是早期施事后缀的遗留形式。由于拉丁语的异态动词是早期状态动词的遗留，因此可以想象，当罗马人的远古祖先使用处于施事 - 受事阶段的语言时，“狼死了”会表达为类似：

Mort est lup.
死 是 狼（通格）

instead of the classical Lupus mortuus est, where the nominative case has been extended to the argument of a former stative verb.
而非古典拉丁语的 Lupus mortuus est（狼（主格） 死了）——在古典拉丁语中，主格已扩展至早期状态动词的论元。

Except for an apparent idiosyncrasy that can be easily “corrected” on the part of stative verbs (cf. the situation in Latin), the two syntactic models may seem equally functional and, as such, worthy alternatives of each other. But fundamentally, the differences are considerable. The agent and patient functions are sensory-based functions. They are derived from the observation of events in the outside world. From seeing a predator catch its prey or a warrior kill his foe, language cobblers extracted the agent and patient functions. Conversely, subject and object are purely grammatical functions. They developed as speakers applied greater mental power to the task of building and improving the structure of sentences. The grammatical functions of subject and object were indeed a marked improvement. They eliminated redundancies and unnecessary grammatical distinctions: The verbs kill and die do not have to be grammatically segregated in active and stative subcategories. The semantics suffice: Speakers know from the meaning of these verbs that killing is a voluntary action and killers are performers while dying is not the initiative but the lot of those who die. As languages evolved, the mentally constructed functions of subject and object developed and came to prevail over the sensory inspired agent and patient duo. This development freed syntax from the constraining restriction imposed by the sensory model and made it thereby possible for every noun to be the subject of every verb and for every verb to have a subject. Here as in writing, evolution was marked by greater abstraction bringing in greater potential and greater efficiency.
除了状态动词的论元标记这一可轻易“修正”的表面特异性（参见拉丁语的情况），两种句法模型看似功能相当，可互为替代。但从本质上看，二者差异显著：施事与受事功能基于感官，源于对外部世界事件的观察——语言创造者通过观察捕食者捕捉猎物、战士杀死敌人等场景，提炼出施事与受事功能；而主语与宾语则是纯粹的语法功能，是说话者运用更强的心智能力构建和完善句子结构的产物。主语与宾语这一语法功能无疑是重大进步：它消除了冗余和不必要的语法区分——“杀死（kill）”和“死亡（die）”无需在语法上分为主动类和状态类，语义本身已足够说明问题：说话者从词汇意义中就能知晓，“杀死”是自愿动作，“杀手”是执行者；而“死亡”并非主动发起，而是“死者”的遭遇。随着语言进化，心智构建的主语与宾语功能逐渐发展并取代了感官启发的施事 - 受事组合。这一发展使句法摆脱了感官模型的约束，使得每个名词都能成为每个动词的主语，每个动词都能拥有主语。与文字进化一样，句法进化的标志是更高的抽象性，带来了更强的表达潜力和效率。

The ancestral syntactic model, be it in a further developed form, is still to be found today: It occurs in many native languages of North and South America and archaic vernaculars all over the world (cf. Klimov, 1977 and 1979 and also Schmidt, 1979). In the Indo-European family the absolutive form of the neuter nouns (no nominative and no accusative case markers) suggests their being surviving fossils of the ancient subcategory of inactive nouns. Since their referents were incapable of action, these nouns were always in the absolutive and never in the agentive case. The Latin deponents constitute another case of survival. Their being morphologically opposed to active verbs is admittedly not functional, but their distinctiveness is nevertheless indicative of the active/stative opposition at an ancestral stage (cf. active neco ‘kill’ vs. deponent morior ‘die’). The Latin deponents are also interesting for displaying that stage in the evolution when the possibility of having a subject had been extended to stative verbs.
原始句法模型（即使是经过进一步发展的形式）在如今仍能找到：它存在于南北美洲的许多土著语言以及世界各地的古老方言中（参见 Klimov, 1977；1979；Schmidt, 1979）。在印欧语系中，中性名词的通格形式（无主格和宾格标记）表明它们是古代“无行动能力名词”子类的活化石——由于其指称对象无法发起动作，这些名词始终采用通格，从不使用施事格。拉丁语的异态动词是另一类遗留现象：尽管其与主动动词的形态对立在现代已无功能意义，但这种差异性仍反映了原始阶段的主动/状态对立（例如主动动词 neco“杀死”与异态动词 morior“死亡”）。拉丁语异态动词的另一有趣之处在于，它体现了进化中的一个阶段：主语的可能性已扩展至状态动词。

5.5.2. Word order: from head-last to head-first

5.5.2. 语序：从中心语后置到中心语前置

The development of the grammatical functions of subject and object and the attendant marginalization of the agent-patient model was an important step in the construction of sentence structure. There is another equally important one occurring before our very eyes, but its evolutionary significance remains hidden, veiled by the prevailing prejudice that variants are gratuitous alternatives of one another. Indeed what better support for such a prejudice than that allegedly provided by the two symmetrically opposed word orders. The Romans said: Caesar legatos missit lit. ‘Cesar ambassadors sent’ while the Italians today would say: Cesare inviò ambasciatori: Object Verb in one case, Verb Object in the other – no real difference, a matter of preference – so it seems.
主语与宾语语法功能的发展以及随之而来的施事 - 受事模型的边缘化，是句子结构构建的重要一步。另一个同样重要的变化正在我们眼前发生，但由于普遍存在“变体是无意义替代形式”的偏见，其进化意义仍被掩盖。事实上，没有什么比两种对称对立的语序更能支撑这一偏见了：古罗马人说 Caesar legatos missit，字面意为“凯撒 使者 派遣”（宾语 - 动词）；而现代意大利人会说 Cesare inviò ambasciatori，意为“凯撒 派遣 使者”（动词 - 宾语）——表面看来，这只是偏好问题，并无实质差异。

But the impression may be misleading. In fact, all syntactic units in all languages are dyadic structures made of two items of which one governs the other. The governing item is called the head and its “subject” the modifier. Since the two items can only appear sequentially, the resulting word order is either head-first or head-last. Out of expediency, one often speaks of SOV and SVO languages, but such an expression is correct only when it is seen as a synecdoche – naming the part when the whole is meant. The word order rule applies not just to verbs and their objects, but across the whole range of syntactic structures, though not always with absolute consistency. That is what makes languages predominantly head-last or predominantly head-first. Latin was predominantly head-last; English and the modern Romance languages are predominantly head-first (see table).
但这一印象可能具有误导性。事实上，所有语言的所有句法单位都是二元结构，由两个成分组成，其中一个成分支配另一个。起支配作用的成分称为“中心语（head）”，被支配的成分称为“修饰语（modifier）”。由于两个成分只能按顺序出现，因此语序要么是中心语前置，要么是中心语后置。为方便起见，人们常说 SOV（主语 - 宾语 - 动词）和 SVO（主语 - 动词 - 宾语）语言，但这种表述仅在作为“以部分代整体”的提喻时才成立。语序规则不仅适用于动词及其宾语，还适用于所有句法结构（尽管并非绝对一致）——这正是语言“以中心语后置为主”或“以中心语前置为主”的原因。拉丁语以中心语后置为主，英语和现代罗曼语族语言则以中心语前置为主（见下表）。

The relevancy of all this for evolution lies in the fact that the incipient structures were head-last and that they are becoming head-first. This is a massive change involving the whole range of syntactic structures, but the progress has not been uniform across the languages of the world. Some, admittedly, have been faster and spread the change to more syntactic structures than others, which explains why languages are predominantly, not exclusively, one way or the other. But the trend is omnipresent and, under normal circumstances, irreversible i.e. when there is no interference from a clashing prestige language. The change always proceeds from head-last to head-first (Dunn et al. 2011; see also Newmeyer, 2000 for supporting the unidirectionality of the change). That such a trend exists, present in all languages and latent in every syntactic structure, cannot be a chance occurrence. It is a fundamental feature and a valuable clue to the understanding of the evolution of languages. The magnitude of the word order reversal process could be compared to the importance of the emergence of endothermy (warm bloodedness) in biology – both of them had or are having a wide impact and provided considerable selective advantages.
这一切与进化的相关性在于：原始句法结构以中心语后置为主，而如今正逐渐向中心语前置转变。这是一场涉及所有句法结构的重大变革，但在世界各语言中的推进速度并不均匀——诚然，部分语言的变革速度更快，且变革覆盖的句法结构更多，这也解释了为何语言只是“以某一种语序为主”，而非“完全单一语序”。但这一趋势无处不在，且在正常情况下（即无冲突性权威语言干扰时）是不可逆的。语序变化始终从中心语后置向中心语前置推进（Dunn et al. 2011；支持这一单向性的观点另见 Newmeyer, 2000）。这种存在于所有语言、潜藏于每个句法结构的趋势，绝非偶然——它是语言的基本特征，也是理解语言进化的宝贵线索。语序逆转的重要性，堪比生物学中恒温性（温血）的出现——二者都已产生或正在产生广泛影响，并带来了显著的选择优势。

modifier head 修饰语 中心语	➮	head modifier 中心语 修饰语
(veritas) odium parit （真理）仇恨 产生		(truth) begets hatred （真理）产生 仇恨
caelo missus 天空 被派遣		sent from heaven 从天空 派遣
locutus est 说话 已经		(he) has said （他）已经 说话
legere habeo 阅读 将要		(I) shall read （我）将要 阅读
me cum 我 和		with me 和 我
sceleris purus 罪行 无辜的		innocent of crimes 对罪行 无辜
patrum nostrorum aetas 我们祖先的 时代		(the) age of our fathers （我们祖先的）时代
aere perennius 青铜 更持久的		more lasting than bronze 比青铜 更持久
Mare Nostrum 海 我们的		Our Sea 我们的 海
…………		…………
fünfund zwanzig 五和 二十		twenty-five 二十-五
halb zwei 一半 二		one thirty 一 点半（一点三十）

Head-last structures are Gestalt “bites” whereas head-first structures are analytical sequences. Such sequences being easier for the speaker to produce and for the listener to process have the added advantage of being able to carry more information. Analytical processing is also a feature of the left hemisphere whereas Gestalt perception is characteristic of the workings of the right hemisphere. The omnipresent trend to head-first structures, like the Greek reversal of the writing direction, is part of cross-fertilization process whereby the new order consolidates the left hemisphere’s being the language center while the left hemisphere makes syntax work more efficiently. The two reversals, that of the direction of writing and that of word order, embody the left-hemispherization of language and form the quintessential process of language evolution.
中心语后置结构是格式塔式的“整体片段”，而中心语前置结构是分析性的序列。这种序列对说话者而言更易产出，对听话者而言更易加工，且具有承载更多信息的额外优势。分析性加工是左半球的特征，而格式塔感知是右半球的运作特点。中心语前置的普遍趋势，与希腊人对书写方向的逆转一样，都是交叉渗透过程的一部分：新的语序巩固了左半球作为语言中枢的地位，而左半球则使句法运作更高效。书写方向与语序的这两次逆转，体现了语言的左半球化，构成了语言进化的核心过程。

6. A continuous process of left-hemispherization

6. 持续的左半球化过程

The foregoing was not an attempt to reconstruct the ultimate prototypical vernacular and describe how its features derived to become those of today’s languages. Such a prototypical language never existed, nor was there a discrete biological event, such as the descent of the larynx, or a mental development, such as the computational mechanism of recursion, that made us fit for language and made language emerge. Much like the evolution of biological species, which stretches from a unicellular prototype to humans, the evolution of language is a continuum that extends from the first conventionalized grunt to the most proficient linguistic system. Language was built piece by piece through a cross fertilizing spiral whereby each step in the construction of language reinforced our potential for language and each step in the advancement of our potential for language made the advancement of language possible.
上述论述并非试图重建原始的原型语言，也并非描述其特征如何衍生为当今语言的特征。这种原型语言从未存在过，也不存在任何单一的生物学事件（如喉头下降）或心智发展（如递归计算机制），使人类具备语言能力并促成语言的出现。与生物物种从单细胞原型进化到人类的过程类似，语言进化是一个连续体，从第一个约定俗成的咕哝声延伸至最精密的语言系统。语言通过交叉渗透螺旋逐步构建：语言构建的每一步都强化了人类的语言潜能，而语言潜能的每一次提升，又使语言的进一步发展成为可能。

What the foregoing tried to do was to argue that the initial linguistic devices were cobbled by incipient speakers without linguistically wired brains. Their brain was wired for the sensory mapping of the outside world, and it is on the basis of that mapping that the initial linguistic devices were tinkered. In the course of time, these early improvised implements were gradually replaced with alternatives created mentally for specific linguistic purposes (cf. e.g., the ancestral agent/patient sentence structure and the modern subject/object one). This line of development substantiates the view that language evolution has been a continuous process from the first meaning charged grunt to this day.
上述论述试图说明的是：最初的语言工具，是由不具备先天语言神经连接的早期说话者拼凑而成的。他们的大脑仅具备外部世界的感官映射能力，而最初的语言工具正是基于这种映射构建的。随着时间推移，这些早期的即兴工具逐渐被为特定语言目的而心智创造的替代形式所取代（例如，原始的施事/受事句子结构与现代的主语/宾语结构）。这一发展脉络证实了以下观点：语言进化是一个从第一个带有意义的咕哝声延续至今的连续过程。

This line of development, though not coterminous and not directly related, is also characteristic of the evolution of writing from figurative hieroglyphs to mentally created alphabetic symbols. Together these two developments raise the question of their neural substrate: Do these developments reflect the consolidation of language and writing in the left hemisphere? There are serious indications that the evolution of writing went hand in hand with the left-hemispherization of writing, and there are reasons to think that the evolution of language went hand in hand with the left-hemispherization of language. Time and probing research will tell.
这一发展脉络尽管与文字进化并非同步、也无直接关联，但与文字从具象象形文字到心智创造的字母符号的进化具有相同特征。这两项发展共同引出了一个关于其神经基础的问题：它们是否反映了语言和文字在左半球的巩固？有充分迹象表明，文字进化与文字的左半球化同步进行；也有理由认为，语言进化与语言的左半球化相伴而行。这一点有待时间和深入研究来证实。

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Language: Its Origin and Ongoing Evolution

语言：其起源与持续演化

J Intell. 2023 Mar 28;11(4):61. doi: 10.3390/jintelligence11040061
《智能期刊》. 2023年3月28日；11(4):61. 数字对象标识符：10.3390/jintelligence11040061

Language: Its Origin and Ongoing Evolution
语言：其起源与持续演化

Ilia Markov
伊利亚·马尔可夫
1 Department of Psychology, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA
2 Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics (TIMES), The University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA
3 Center for Cognitive Sciences, Sirius University for Science and Technology, Sochi 354340, Russia
1 美国得克萨斯州休斯顿市 77204 号，休斯顿大学心理学系
2 美国得克萨斯州休斯顿市 77204 号，休斯顿大学得克萨斯测量、评估与统计研究所（TIMES）
3 俄罗斯索契市 354340 号， Sirius 科技大学认知科学中心
Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing
概念构思、研究实施、初稿撰写、审阅与编辑

Kseniia Kharitonova
克塞尼娅·哈里托诺娃
1 Department of Psychology, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA
1 美国得克萨斯州休斯顿市 77204 号，休斯顿大学心理学系
Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing
概念构思、研究实施、初稿撰写、审阅与编辑

Elena L Grigorenko
埃琳娜·L·格里戈连科
1 Department of Psychology, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA
2 Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics (TIMES), The University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA
3 Center for Cognitive Sciences, Sirius University for Science and Technology, Sochi 354340, Russia
4 Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
5 Child Study Center and Haskins Laboratories, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
6 Rector’s Office, Moscow State University for Psychology and Education, Moscow 127051, Russia
1 美国得克萨斯州休斯顿市 77204 号，休斯顿大学心理学系
2 美国得克萨斯州休斯顿市 77204 号，休斯顿大学得克萨斯测量、评估与统计研究所（TIMES）
3 俄罗斯索契市 354340 号， Sirius 科技大学认知科学中心
4 美国得克萨斯州休斯顿市 77030 号，贝勒医学院
5 美国康涅狄格州纽黑文市 06520 号，耶鲁大学儿童研究中心与哈斯金斯实验室
6 俄罗斯莫斯科市 127051 号，莫斯科国立心理与教育大学教务处
Conceptualization, Resources, Writing – review & editing, Supervision, Funding acquisition
概念构思、资源协调、审阅与编辑、监督管理、资金获取

Correspondence: elena.grigorenko@times.uh.edu
通信作者：elena.grigorenko@times.uh.edu

Roles
作者分工
Ilia Markov: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing
伊利亚·马尔可夫：概念构思、研究实施、初稿撰写、审阅与编辑
Kseniia Kharitonova: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing
克塞尼娅·哈里托诺娃：概念构思、研究实施、初稿撰写、审阅与编辑
Elena L Grigorenko: Conceptualization, Resources, Writing – review & editing, Supervision, Funding acquisition
埃琳娜·L·格里戈连科：概念构思、资源协调、审阅与编辑、监督管理、资金获取

Received 2023 Feb 17; Revised 2023 Mar 17; Accepted 2023 Mar 23; Collection date 2023 Apr.
收稿日期：2023年2月17日；修回日期：2023年3月17日；录用日期：2023年3月23日；收录日期：2023年4月

© 2023 by the authors.
© 2023 作者所有
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
授权方：瑞士巴塞尔 MDPI 出版社。本文为开放获取文章，依据知识共享署名许可协议（CC BY）的条款和条件分发（链接：https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/）

PMCID: PMC10142271 PMID: 37103246

Abstract

摘要

With the present paper, we sought to use research findings to illustrate the following thesis: the evolution of language follows the principles of human evolution. We argued that language does not exist for its own sake, it is one of a multitude of skills that developed to achieve a shared communicative goal, and all its features are reflective of this. Ongoing emerging language adaptations strive to better fit the present state of the human species. Theories of language have evolved from a single-modality to multimodal, from human-specific to usage-based and goal-driven. We proposed that language should be viewed as a multitude of communication techniques that have developed and are developing in response to selective pressure. The precise nature of language is shaped by the needs of the species (arguably, uniquely H. sapiens) utilizing it, and the emergence of new situational adaptations, as well as new forms and types of human language, demonstrates that language includes an act driven by a communicative goal. This article serves as an overview of the current state of psycholinguistic research on the topic of language evolution.
本文旨在通过研究成果阐明以下核心论点：语言演化遵循人类演化的原则。我们认为，语言并非为自身而存在，它是为实现共同交流目标而发展出的众多技能之一，其所有特征均体现了这一点。正在出现的语言适应性变化力求更贴合人类当前的状态。语言理论已从单模态演变为多模态，从人类特有论发展为基于使用和目标驱动的理论。我们提出，语言应被视为一系列响应选择压力而发展和正在发展的交流技巧。语言的具体本质由使用它的物种（可以说，特指智人）的需求所塑造，而新的情境适应性变化以及人类语言新形式和新类型的出现，表明语言包含一种由交流目标驱动的行为。本文概述了语言演化主题的心理语言学研究现状。

Keywords: communication, evolution, language

关键词：交流、演化、语言

1. Introduction

1. 引言

Research on language origin and evolution may be viewed as two of the most prominent research directions of the past few years. While these questions have been at the forefront of language science since its inception, only recently have we seen methodologies and techniques being developed that can provide answers backed with sufficient empirical evidence. The landscape of theoretical frameworks of language origin, the form in which it originated, and its worldwide dispersal has also been shifting in response to newly obtained evidence. The field of language evolution research can be described as currently coming of age while already equipped with a rich toolkit of methods for pursuits such as comparative research, investigating commonalities and differences between human language and animal communication systems, and studying cumulative cultural evolution of communication systems in experimental settings (Dediu and de Boer 2016).
语言起源与演化研究可被视为过去几年中最突出的两大研究方向。尽管这些问题自语言科学诞生以来就一直处于前沿地位，但直到最近，我们才看到能够提供足够实证证据支持的答案的方法论和技术得以发展。随着新证据的出现，关于语言起源、起源形式及其全球传播的理论框架格局也在不断变化。语言演化研究领域目前已日趋成熟，同时已具备丰富的研究方法工具，例如比较研究、探究人类语言与动物交流系统的异同，以及在实验环境中研究交流系统的累积文化演化（Dediu 和 de Boer，2016）。

The aim of this article was to give a brief overview of the evolution of language, as well as to demonstrate how theoretical frameworks of language origin and evolution evolved with it. We sought to utilize the latest findings to argue that evolution is one of the central driving forces of the existence and development of human language. Language is a human skill, the nature and features of which are shaped in accordance with the needs of the species through continuous usage and adherence to communicative goals (Grigorenko 2023). That nature is reflected through newly emergent language origin theories that move away from the innateness of language and provide plausible explanations of gradual language emergence from a multitude of other subsystems of communication. In regard to language modality, the main informational channel of origin, we intended to provide theoretical reasoning and evidence for the multimodal approach.
本文的目的是简要概述语言的演化，并展示语言起源与演化的理论框架如何随之演变。我们试图利用最新研究成果论证，演化是人类语言存在和发展的核心驱动力之一。语言是一种人类技能，其本质和特征通过持续使用和坚守交流目标，依据物种需求而形成（Grigorenko，2023）。这种本质体现在新出现的语言起源理论中，这些理论摆脱了语言天赋论的束缚，对语言从众多其他交流子系统中逐步兴起提供了合理的解释。关于语言模态（即起源的主要信息渠道），我们旨在为多模态理论提供理论依据和实证支持。

To illustrate that language is a skill that constantly undergoes changes due to various selective pressures, we aimed to explore three groups of factors that seem to transform language in the most significant ways: factors of the physical environment (such as aridity, vegetation, ambient temperatures, precipitation, latitude), socio-demographic factors (number of language users, geographic spread, degree of language contact, and the role of communicative situations), and technological advances (Internet, smartphones, and instant messaging). The latter group of factors is of most interest to us due to the changes that online communication is bringing about at a rate that has never been witnessed before. We propose that the evolution of language follows a similar pattern to the one outlined by recent research into general intelligence, promoting a more context-dependent and dynamic view of intelligence that is focused more radically than ever before on niche construction as a result of the cultural evolution (Preiss 2022). The factors of the environment that influence language now reflect the changes brought along with the Anthropocene (Anthropocene Working Group 2019), which further alters the ecological niche of our species, necessitating further adaptation.
为说明语言是一种因各种选择压力而不断变化的技能，我们旨在探讨三组似乎对语言产生最显著变革的因素：物理环境因素（如干旱程度、植被、环境温度、降水量、纬度）、社会人口因素（语言使用者数量、地理分布范围、语言接触程度以及交流情境的作用）和技术进步（互联网、智能手机和即时通讯工具）。后一组因素最受我们关注，因为在线交流正以前所未有的速度带来变革。我们提出，语言演化遵循与近期一般智力研究概述的相似模式，推动形成一种更依赖情境、更具动态性的智力观，这种观点比以往任何时候都更加强调文化演化带来的生态位构建（Preiss，2022）。如今影响语言的环境因素反映了人类世带来的变化（人类世工作组，2019），这进一步改变了我们物种的生态位，需要进一步的适应性调整。

While the argumentation provided in the present article is split into two main sections, covering the theories of origin and the evidence of evolution, all of it follows the main thesis of language emerging and evolving through usage; we deem this thesis to be the most prominent new direction in language research.
尽管本文的论证分为两个主要部分，分别涵盖起源理论和演化证据，但所有内容都围绕“语言通过使用产生和演化”这一核心论点展开；我们认为这一论点是语言研究中最突出的新方向。

2. Origin of Language

2. 语言的起源

There are more than 7000 living languages across the globe today (Lewis 2009). To approach the topic of the ongoing evolution of language that spans millennia, we first need to determine its origin. However, the question by itself poses a challenge.
如今全球有超过 7000 种现存语言（Lewis，2009）。要探讨跨越数千年的语言持续演化这一主题，我们首先需要确定其起源。然而，这一问题本身就极具挑战性。

An important philosophical distinction collects two separate topics under the label “origin of language”: the origin of language faculty and the origin of languages (Formigari 2013). The latter leads to a further question, namely, whether all world languages derive from one single “protolanguage”—i.e., monogenesis—or do several language families (e.g., Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic, Altaic) each derive from a different protolanguage—i.e., polygenesis (Graffi 2019).
一个重要的哲学区分将两个不同的主题归入“语言起源”的范畴：语言能力的起源和语言的起源（Formigari，2013）。后者引出了一个更深层次的问题，即所有世界语言是否都源自一种单一的“原始语言”——即单源论，或者多个语系（如印欧语系、亚非语系、阿尔泰语系）是否各自源自不同的原始语言——即多源论（Graffi，2019）。

The theories relating to the emergence of language have been extensively debated for centuries, once leading to the infamous ban of the germane discussions by the Société de Linguistique de Paris in 1861. However, the field has seen a surge in this theorizing since the late 20th century and its considerable evolution over the past two decades (Nölle et al. 2020b). The focus of the debate has been on the innateness of language for many years. The central line of research that incorporates the traditional generative view (Chomsky 1988), notions of innateness, universal grammar (UG), and the poverty of stimulus argument is largely classified as biolinguistics (for a more modern iteration of this framework, see (Boeckx 2021; Bolhuis et al. 2014; Hauser et al. 2002)). Such approaches argue that knowledge of language structures is impossible to extract from linguistic input; hence, it is suggested to be innate. An opposing point of view, referred to as “usage-based” or “emergentist” approaches, postulates that language emerged from its usage: “meaning is use—structure emerges from use” (Tomasello 2009, p. 69); linguistic knowledge in these approaches proceeds via the abstraction and schematization of actual language use into fixed chunks, as well as more abstract linguistic patterns that become cognitively entrenched. These approaches, therefore, reject the notion of UG (Pleyer and Hartmann 2019), instead utilizing the notion of the common communicative goal to explain language commonalities (Arbib 2012). Notably, attempts to synthesize the opposing theories were few and far between. Such an attempt was undertaken by Pinker and Bloom (1990), where the authors put forth a compelling case against viewing language as a “spandrel”—an architectural allegory of a space formed at the intersection of other spaces, its shape therefore not being a significant trait on its own—arguing that certain constraints would not allow us to assume a non-adaptationist point of view, as “no adaptive organ can be adaptive in every aspect” (1990, p. 19).
关于语言起源的理论已争论了数百年，甚至在 1861 年导致巴黎语言学会臭名昭著地禁止相关讨论。然而，自 20 世纪末以来，该领域的理论研究激增，并在过去二十年中发生了相当大的演变（Nölle 等人，2020b）。多年来，争论的焦点一直集中在语言的天赋性上。融合了传统生成语法观点（Chomsky，1988）、天赋论、普遍语法（UG）以及刺激贫乏论的核心研究路线，在很大程度上被归类为生物语言学（该框架的更现代版本参见（Boeckx，2021；Bolhuis 等人，2014；Hauser 等人，2002））。这类理论认为，语言结构知识无法从语言输入中提取，因此被认为是先天的。与之相对的观点被称为“基于使用”或“涌现论”方法，该方法假定语言源于其使用：“意义即使用——结构源于使用”（Tomasello，2009，第 69 页）；在这些方法中，语言知识通过将实际语言使用抽象和图式化为固定片段，以及形成认知层面根深蒂固的更抽象语言模式而获得。因此，这些方法否定了普遍语法（UG）的概念（Pleyer 和 Hartmann，2019），转而利用共同交流目标的概念来解释语言的共性（Arbib，2012）。值得注意的是，综合对立理论的尝试寥寥无几。Pinker 和 Bloom（1990）进行了这样的尝试，他们有力地反驳了将语言视为“拱肩”的观点——“拱肩”是一个建筑隐喻，指由其他空间交叉形成的空间，其形状本身并非重要特征——他们认为，某些限制不允许我们采用非适应论的观点，因为“没有任何适应性器官在各个方面都是适应性的”（1990，第 19 页）。

In these controversies, one of the most contested topics is the question of causality, which is influenced by several factors: the problem of spurious correlation (Roberts and Winters 2012), the universally concerning “replication crisis” (Open Science Collaboration 2015), and a tendency to rely on indirect evidence (Nölle et al. 2020b). A novel solution for this contest is termed the “maximum robustness approach,” which, instead of focusing on simple causal relationships, aims to systematically construct more complex and coherent causal graphs (Pearl 2000), incorporating all available evidence to form links between multiple variables. The CHIELD database, which is a repository of linguistic hypotheses produced in literature, was created to explore such graphs in order to find gaps or conflicting relationships, which can help to design empirical research addressing these issues and uncovering actual causal mechanisms (Roberts et al. 2020). The database is public and functional: it is designed to be extendable by future researchers to ultimately become comprehensive and inclusive of as many languages as possible (that exist). Universal acceptance of a database such as this is the first step toward a realistic implementation of the maximum robustness approach.
在这些争议中，最具争议的话题之一是因果关系问题，这一问题受到多个因素的影响：虚假相关问题（Roberts 和 Winters，2012）、全球关注的“可重复性危机”（开放科学协作组织，2015）以及依赖间接证据的倾向（Nölle 等人，2020b）。针对这一争议的一种新解决方案被称为“最大稳健性方法”，该方法不关注简单的因果关系，而是旨在系统地构建更复杂、更连贯的因果图（Pearl，2000），整合所有可用证据以形成多个变量之间的关联。CHIELD 数据库是文献中提出的语言假设的存储库，其创建目的是探索此类图表，以发现空白或冲突关系，从而帮助设计实证研究来解决这些问题并揭示实际的因果机制（Roberts 等人，2020）。该数据库是公开且可用的：其设计允许未来的研究人员对其进行扩展，最终实现全面性，涵盖尽可能多的（现存）语言。对这类数据库的普遍接受是切实实施最大稳健性方法的第一步。

To summarize, the current general trend for the linguistic field seems to move further and further away from notions of language innateness, although significant support for these viewpoints remains. In the scope of language evolution, usage-based frameworks allow for significantly more detailed and insightful investigations into the emergence of language. The same appears to be true for research into the modality of origin: this landscape of theories is also changing.
总之，尽管语言天赋论的观点仍有大量支持，但语言学领域当前的总体趋势似乎正越来越远离这一概念。在语言演化的研究范围内，基于使用的框架能够对语言的起源进行更详细、更具洞察力的研究。关于起源模态的研究似乎也是如此：该领域的理论格局也在发生变化。

2.1. Modality of Origin

2.1. 起源的模态

The debate on the modality of origin, which is the initial main channel carrying verbal information, also has a few contesting theories: according to the “gesture-first” view, “language evolved initially from manual gestures with vocal elements gradually added” (Corballis 2011, p. 383). The “speech-first” view (Dunbar 1997; MacNeilage 2008) argues for the pre-emergence of a vocal–auditory modality given its present-day dominance (for a full historical overview, see Fitch 2010). Modern theories argue for a multimodal emergence theory, incorporating complex interplay between auditory and visual channels (Perlman 2017). Among newer ideas, “pantomime-first” was put forward as a distinct theoretical proposal (Zlatev et al. 2017), which intrigues but does not provide much empirical evidence for its support. Another supporting usage-based account on multimodality comes from Levinson and Holler (2014), who propose that language normally occurs while embedded in a layered structure of multiple other channels of information. This view enables different phylogenetic and evolutionary origins to be assigned to each layer. Such holistic representation helps to bridge the gulf between the species, allowing us to recognize precursor adaptations such as turn-taking in current primates and the gestural skills of great apes as the first steps toward language formation, while the whole ensemble of language continues to be distinctively human.
关于起源模态（即承载语言信息的最初主要渠道）的争论也存在几种相互对立的理论：根据“手势优先”假说，“语言最初从手部手势演化而来，随后逐渐加入语音元素”（Corballis，2011，第 383 页）。“言语优先”假说（Dunbar，1997；MacNeilage，2008）认为，鉴于语音-听觉模态如今的主导地位，它是先于其他模态出现的（完整的历史概述参见 Fitch，2010）。现代理论主张多模态起源论，认为语言的起源涉及听觉和视觉渠道之间的复杂相互作用（Perlman，2017）。在较新的观点中，“哑剧优先”被提出作为一种独特的理论主张（Zlatev 等人，2017），这一观点颇具吸引力，但缺乏大量实证证据支持。另一种支持多模态的基于使用的解释来自 Levinson 和 Holler（2014），他们认为语言通常嵌入在多个其他信息渠道的分层结构中发生。这种观点允许为每个层级赋予不同的系统发育和演化起源。这种整体表征有助于弥合物种之间的鸿沟，使我们能够将现有灵长类动物的轮流发言行为和类人猿的手势技能等前驱适应性特征视为语言形成的第一步，而语言的整体仍然是人类特有的。

One of the novel multimodal hypotheses is the mirror system hypothesis developed by Rizzolatti and Arbib (1998), which postulates that the mechanisms that support language in the human brain evolved atop a basic mechanism not originally related to communication: the mirror system, as the evolutionary basis for language, possesses a capacity to generate and recognize a set of actions. Arbib argues that the evolution of language is rooted in the execution and observation of hand movements, leading to the emergence of sign language, which was thereafter extended to speech. Complex imitation for hand movements evolved adaptively because of its utility in the social sharing of practical and manual skills. Skill sharing through imitation, such as grasping objects and using simple tools, existed long before language, being “more powerful than the call and gesture systems of nonhuman primates but lacking the full richness of modern human languages” (Arbib 2012, p. 157).
一种新颖的多模态假说是由 Rizzolatti 和 Arbib（1998）提出的镜像系统假说，该假说认为，人类大脑中支持语言的机制是在一种原本与交流无关的基本机制之上演化而来的：镜像系统作为语言的演化基础，具有生成和识别一系列动作的能力。Arbib 认为，语言的演化植根于手部动作的执行和观察，这导致了手语的出现，随后手语又扩展到言语。手部动作的复杂模仿具有适应性演化特征，因为它在实际技能和手工技能的社会共享中具有实用性。通过模仿进行的技能共享（如抓取物体和使用简单工具）在语言出现之前就已存在，它“比非人类灵长类动物的呼叫和手势系统更强大，但缺乏现代人类语言的全部丰富性”（Arbib，2012，第 157 页）。

Importantly, the origin theories based on the writing modality are characteristically absent, which is understandable given its (mostly) secondary nature to spoken language. This, however, is all too indicative of the attitudes to writing in language research prior to modern studies. The linguistic views on the emergence of writing were varied and controversial, echoing many general issues of the evolution of spoken language. The traditional outlook on writing systems since Aristotle was superficial, ostensibly viewing these systems as an optional, supplemental representation of spoken language. Moreover, writing was deemed a “wandering outcast of linguistics” (Derrida 1976), leading to a suppression of research on writing. Similarly, for Saussure, written language was an object of suspicion, presenting a confounding and contaminating influence on language, going so far as to state that “to let go of the letter means a first step in the direction of truth” (Saussure et al. 1986, p. 32). The views that were expressed during that time in the field were later ascribed to the “written language bias” (Linell 2004).
值得注意的是，基于书写模态的起源理论明显缺失，考虑到书写（大多）是口语的次要形式，这一点是可以理解的。然而，这也充分反映了现代研究之前语言研究中对书写的态度。关于书写起源的语言学观点各不相同且存在争议，与口语演化的许多普遍问题相呼应。自亚里士多德以来，对书写系统的传统看法较为肤浅，表面上将这些系统视为口语的可选补充形式。此外，书写被视为“语言学的流浪弃儿”（Derrida，1976），导致书写研究受到压制。同样，在索绪尔看来，书面语是可疑的，它对语言产生混淆和污染性影响，他甚至指出“摆脱文字的束缚意味着向真理迈出了第一步”（Saussure 等人，1986，第 32 页）。该领域当时表达的这些观点后来被归因于“书面语偏见”（Linell，2004）。

Views that contested that bias started emerging in the mid-20th century from the historical (Goody 1986) and anthropological (McLuhan 1962) fields that, in turn, influenced studies of language to ascribe a more fundamental meaning to writing. One of the modern points of view from D.S. Olson proposed a special relationship of writing to the general machinery of language, which was influenced by those accounts and driven by developmental evidence (Robinson et al. 1983). Olson’s most recent account postulated that reading and writing create a system of meta-representation concepts that contribute to consciousness, the formation of systematic thought, and rationality. In addition, some theories suggest that writing did not emerge as a secondary representation of spoken language but as the evolution of the token system for the purposes of goods exchanged or accounting (Schmandt-Besserat 2012). The role of writing systems is similarly far from secondary according to the literacy hypothesis (Goody and Watt 1963), and while it has received a lot of criticism on the matter of most aspects of civilized society preexisting and assimilating literacy at its advent, some scholars define influential “biases” (Olson 2012) that may have contributed greatly to the cognitive and social development of the species. Such an impact of writing may be evidenced by tests of intelligence, including items that deal with vocabulary and the relationship between words, which test our capacity to participate in a literate environment (Olson 2005, as cited in Preiss and Sternberg 2006). Additionally, writing is essential to consider if adopting the adaptationist point of view, as the emergence of writing seems to possess several features characteristic of a Darwinian process (Lock and Gers 2012).
对这种偏见提出质疑的观点于 20 世纪中叶开始从历史学（Goody，1986）和人类学（McLuhan，1962）领域出现，进而影响了语言研究，使人们赋予书写更根本的意义。D.S. 奥尔森的现代观点之一提出了书写与语言一般机制的特殊关系，这一观点受到上述研究的影响，并得到了发展证据的支持（Robinson 等人，1983）。奥尔森最新的观点假定，阅读和书写创造了一套元表征概念系统，有助于意识、系统思维的形成和理性的发展。此外，一些理论认为，书写并非作为口语的次要表征出现，而是为了货物交换或记账目的，从代币系统演化而来（Schmandt-Besserat，2012）。根据识字假说（Goody 和 Watt，1963），书写系统的作用同样远非次要，尽管该假说因文明社会的大多数方面在识字能力出现之前就已存在并同化了识字能力而受到大量批评，但一些学者定义了具有影响力的“偏见”（Olson，2012），这些偏见可能对人类物种的认知和社会发展做出了巨大贡献。书写的这种影响可能通过智力测试得到证明，包括涉及词汇和词语关系的测试项目，这些测试考查了我们参与识字环境的能力（Olson，2005，引自 Preiss 和 Sternberg，2006）。此外，如果采用适应论的观点，书写是必须考虑的因素，因为书写的出现似乎具有达尔文过程的几个特征（Lock 和 Gers，2012）。

Thus, while the dominating role of the vocal–auditory modality remains indisputable, progress in the field was made toward developing multimodal theories of language origin, which aid in unifying disparate evidence in support of different single-modality theories under a single governing principle.
因此，尽管语音-听觉模态的主导地位仍然无可争议，但该领域在发展语言起源的多模态理论方面取得了进展，这些理论有助于将支持不同单模态理论的零散证据统一在一个单一的主导原则之下。

2.2. Origin of Languages

2.2. 语言的起源

The second question out of the pair laid out at the beginning of the section, namely, regarding “the origin of languages,” was mostly inquired upon in neighboring fields of inquiry and tied to the spread of human populations. A link between the human genome and the spread of languages has been debated ever since Darwin proposed that “a perfect pedigree of mankind… would afford the best classification of the various languages now spoken throughout the world” (Darwin 1871). While some argued that the spread of languages is a good proxy for the dispersion of human populations (Gray and Atkinson 2003; Mace and Holden 2005), opposition to this assumption was also persistent (e.g., Donohue and Denham 2010). Quantitative evidence supports both a general gene–language dispersion correspondence but also substantial (~20%) mismatches between 10 language families and corresponding populations (Barbieri et al. 2022).
本节开头提出的两个问题中的第二个，即“语言的起源”，主要在相邻研究领域中被探讨，并且与人类群体的扩散有关。自从达尔文提出“人类完美的谱系……将为如今全世界使用的各种语言提供最佳分类”（Darwin，1871）以来，人类基因组与语言扩散之间的联系就一直备受争议。尽管一些人认为语言的扩散是人类群体分散的良好代理指标（Gray 和 Atkinson，2003；Mace 和 Holden，2005），但对这一假设的反对也一直存在（例如 Donohue 和 Denham，2010）。定量证据既支持基因与语言扩散之间的总体对应关系，也表明 10 个语系与相应人群之间存在相当大的（约 20%）不匹配（Barbieri 等人，2022）。

Globally, a consensus around the serial founder effect (SFE) process playing an important role in shaping global patterns of neutral genetic diversity is currently forming. This process entails a series of population splits, movements into an unoccupied territory, and subsequent isolation: beginning in Africa and proceeding through Eurasia into the Americas and Oceania. At the within-population level, it led to a steady decay in genetic diversity with increasing geographic distance from East Africa; at the between-population level, it led to a steady increase in genetic distance with increasing geographic distance (Prugnolle et al. 2005; Ramachandran et al. 2005). The debate on the topic of language dispersion was later reignited by Atkinson (2011), who proposed that phoneme inventories in human languages had undergone a parallel SFE process based on the finding that the number of phonemes in 504 widespread languages decreased linearly with increasing geographic distance from Africa. Alternative assumptions for worldwide phonemic cline were tested using numerical simulations, showing that this pattern may be due to a repeated bottleneck effect and phonemic loss: low-density populations lost phonemes during the out-of-Africa dispersal of modern humans (Pérez-Losada and Fort 2018). Creanza et al. (2015) further delved into this issue by performing joint and parallel analyses of phoneme counts in 2,082 languages and DNA microsatellite polymorphisms, which were used as signatures of human demographic history to calculate genetic distances between 246 populations. The results decisively vindicated Darwin’s proposal of human races and languages evolving in concert following a tree-like history of splits and isolation (Darwin 1860) at the global level; however, it did not align with the SFE model with Africa as the center of origin, with it instead being more inclined toward a Eurasian-centered model. A more recent and novel analysis, which covered a cultural layer adjacent to language, namely, music, was carried out on a dataset of 152 societies (containing 1,054 songs from the public database The Global Jukebox in the form of raw coded Cantometrics data, 1,719 genomic profiles, and 152 languages); the analysis demonstrated weak links between music and language ($R^2<=0.05$), as well as with genetic distance and geographic proximity, in contrast to the much stronger relationships found between genes and geography: the results suggest that genes and culture are surprisingly decoupled (Passmore et al. 2022). For the Indo-European family, Bouckaert et al. (2012) used Bayesian phylogeographic approaches with a dataset of basic vocabulary term lists from 103 ancient and contemporary Indo-European languages to model the expansion of the family, finding decisive support for an Anatolian origin over a steppe origin, with both the inferred timing and root location of the Indo-European language trees fitting with an agricultural expansion from Anatolia beginning 8000 to 9500 years ago. Certain linguistic methods, such as Bayesian phylogeographic approaches, that emerged from recent studies provided tentative answers to general questions of human prehistory: a recent study using lexical data and Bayesian phylogenetic methods placed the Austronesian origin in Taiwan approximately 5230 years ago and supported the hypothesis of “pulse-pause” expansion from Taiwan on the origin of the Austronesian settlers of the Pacific (Gray et al. 2009). While being fairly recent for the field, the aforementioned techniques succeeded in helping linguists reclaim the issue of the origin of language as the viable research aim for future investigations aside from the origin of humanity research in neighboring fields.
在全球范围内，人们目前正逐渐形成共识，即系列奠基者效应（SFE）过程在塑造全球中性遗传多样性模式方面发挥着重要作用。这一过程包括一系列的种群分裂、向未被占据领土的迁移以及随后的隔离：始于非洲，经由欧亚大陆延伸至美洲和大洋洲。在种群内部层面，随着与东非的地理距离增加，遗传多样性稳步下降；在种群间层面，随着地理距离的增加，遗传距离稳步上升（Prugnolle 等人，2005；Ramachandran 等人，2005）。Atkinson（2011）后来重新点燃了关于语言扩散主题的争论，他基于 504 种广泛使用的语言的音素数量随着与非洲的地理距离增加而线性减少的发现，提出人类语言的音素库经历了一个平行的系列奠基者效应（SFE）过程。研究人员通过数值模拟测试了全球音素梯度的替代假设，结果表明这种模式可能是由于反复的瓶颈效应和音素丢失造成的：在现代人类走出非洲的扩散过程中，低密度种群丢失了音素（Pérez-Losada 和 Fort，2018）。Creanza 等人（2015）进一步深入探讨了这一问题，他们对 2082 种语言的音素数量和 DNA 微卫星多态性进行了联合和平行分析，将 DNA 微卫星多态性作为人类人口统计学历史的标志，计算了 246 个人群之间的遗传距离。结果在全球层面上果断支持了达尔文的观点，即人类种族和语言遵循树状的分裂和隔离历史协同演化（Darwin，1860）；然而，这与以非洲为起源中心的系列奠基者效应（SFE）模型不符，反而更倾向于以欧亚大陆为中心的模型。一项更新颖的分析涵盖了与语言相邻的文化层面，即音乐，该分析基于 152 个社会的数据集（包含来自公共数据库“全球点唱机”的 1054 首歌曲，以原始编码的音乐计量学数据形式呈现，以及 1719 个基因组图谱和 152 种语言）；分析表明，音乐与语言之间的关联较弱（$R^2<=0.05$），与遗传距离和地理邻近性的关联也较弱，而基因与地理之间的关联则强得多：结果表明基因和文化令人惊讶地相互分离（Passmore 等人，2022）。对于印欧语系，Bouckaert 等人（2012）使用贝叶斯系统地理学方法，基于来自 103 种古代和当代印欧语系语言的基本词汇表数据集，对该语系的扩张进行了建模，发现与草原起源相比，安纳托利亚起源得到了决定性支持，印欧语系树的推断时间和根部位置均与 8000 至 9500 年前始于安纳托利亚的农业扩张相符。 recent 研究中出现的某些语言学方法（如贝叶斯系统地理学方法）为人类史前史的一般问题提供了初步答案：一项最近的研究利用词汇数据和贝叶斯系统发育方法，将南岛语系的起源定在约 5230 年前的台湾，并支持了南岛语系太平洋定居者起源于台湾的“脉冲-停顿”扩张假说（Gray 等人，2009）。尽管这些技术在该领域还比较新，但它们成功地帮助语言学家重新将语言起源问题作为未来研究的可行目标，而不仅仅是相邻领域中人类起源研究的附属内容。

To summarize, new technological and methodological advances have led to the most drastic changes in language evolution research. Large-scale investigations do require substantial resources, and interdisciplinary collaboration poses a challenge, but the results obtained contribute to significant advancements in the linguistic and neighboring fields in regard to the origin of language dispersal.
总之，新的技术和方法学进步带来了语言演化研究中最剧烈的变革。大规模研究确实需要大量资源，跨学科合作也面临挑战，但所获得的结果为语言学及相邻领域在语言扩散起源方面的研究取得重大进展做出了贡献。

2.3. Neural Correlates of Language

2.3. 语言的神经关联

The final important aspect of language origin studies, tangential to linguistics but central to psycholinguistics, is of utmost importance for the present essay: neural correlates of language. Evidence obtained from numerous previous studies that attempted to localize language within the brain is well established: the clinical studies of Broca (Broca 1861) in the 19th century and Wernicke (Wernicke [1874] 1994) in the 20th century, although contested now, served as an initial impulse for this. Similar to the debate on the language faculty origin in linguistic circles, we can note that the initial research findings that focused on narrow specificity of function were later extended to cover contesting evidence and new theoretical frameworks and have evolved into a multidimensional system. Through further publications on the topic emphasizing the importance of previously unaccounted-for brain regions (e.g., insula, Dronkers 1996), the model of choice for the end of the 20th century became the aphasia model (e.g., Obler and Gjerlow 1999). At the beginning of the 21st century, the model was further expanded into Broca-type and Wernicke-type aphasias in accordance with the impairment in one of two language comprehension axes (Ardila 2011, 2012), further solidifying the trend toward system complexity.
语言起源研究的最后一个重要方面与语言学间接相关，但对心理语言学而言至关重要，这也是本文极为关注的内容：语言的神经关联。以往众多试图在大脑中定位语言功能的研究已积累了充分的证据：19 世纪布罗卡（Broca，1861）和 20 世纪韦尼克（Wernicke，[1874]1994）的临床研究尽管如今仍存在争议，但为该领域的研究提供了最初的推动力。与语言学界关于语言能力起源的争论类似，我们可以注意到，最初关注功能狭义特异性的研究结果后来被扩展到涵盖相互矛盾的证据和新的理论框架，并已演变为一个多维系统。通过后续关于该主题的出版物强调此前未被考虑的大脑区域（如岛叶，Dronkers，1996）的重要性，20 世纪末的首选模型成为失语症模型（如 Obler 和 Gjerlow，1999）。21 世纪初，该模型根据两个语言理解维度之一的损伤情况进一步扩展为布罗卡型失语症和韦尼克型失语症（Ardila，2011，2012），这进一步巩固了系统向复杂性发展的趋势。

Modern models of language include numerous areas of the brain organized in multiple circuits within clusters of activation (Ardila et al. 2016). One such model was constructed by Peter Hagoort (2005), who argued that the operation of distributed neural networks in Broca’s area and the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) involves parallel processing of semantic, syntactic, and phonological information through three functional components: memory (long-term memory retrieval), unification (integrating information), and control (selecting a language “action”). Evidence from EEG and MEG studies helped to identify the specific temporal features of unification and memory retrieval components, arguing for neuronal synchronization that supports functional interrelatedness rather than strict domain specificity (Bastiaansen and Hagoort 2006). These considerations are far from a theoretical conjecture nowadays, as they have been translated into presurgical planning (Alemi et al. 2018). Additionally, there is evidence of neural multifunctionality for language networks, in particular, several frontal networks being linked to non-linguistic functions, such as mental rotation (Jordan et al. 2001), musical syntax processing (Maess et al. 2001), and arithmetic comprehension (Baldo and Dronkers 2007). Such findings have driven researchers toward frameworks of multifunctional modularity and are instrumental for scholars developing usage-based approaches to language evolution.
现代语言模型包含大脑的多个区域，这些区域在激活集群内组织成多个回路（Ardila 等人，2016）。Peter Hagoort（2005）构建了这样一种模型，他认为布罗卡区和左额下回（LIFG）中的分布式神经网络运作涉及通过三个功能组件对语义、句法和语音信息进行并行处理：记忆（长期记忆提取）、整合（信息整合）和控制（选择语言“动作”）。脑电图（EEG）和脑磁图（MEG）研究的证据有助于确定整合和记忆提取组件的特定时间特征，支持神经元同步性促进功能关联性而非严格的领域特异性（Bastiaansen 和 Hagoort，2006）。如今，这些观点已远非理论推测，因为它们已被应用于术前规划（Alemi 等人，2018）。此外，有证据表明语言网络具有神经多功能性，特别是多个额叶网络与非语言功能相关联，如心理旋转（Jordan 等人，2001）、音乐句法处理（Maess 等人，2001）和算术理解（Baldo 和 Dronkers，2007）。这些发现促使研究人员转向多功能模块性框架，并且对开发基于使用的语言演化方法的学者具有重要意义。

Thus, despite initial findings that focused on the narrow specificity of function, the field has evolved to include numerous areas of the brain organized in multiple circuits within clusters of activation, in addition to the emerging evidence of neural multifunctionality for language networks.
因此，尽管最初的研究结果侧重于功能的狭义特异性，但该领域已发展到涵盖大脑的多个区域，这些区域在激活集群内组织成多个回路，此外还有越来越多的证据表明语言网络具有神经多功能性。

3. Language Adaptation

3. 语言的适应性变化

Lupyan and Dale (2016) argued that observed linguistic differences arise not only from the accumulation of random changes due to the languages drifting apart but also may be reflective of the environment in which the language was developing. These environmental aspects that pressure languages into continuous diversification are social, physical, and technological in nature (Lupyan and Dale 2016).
Lupyan 和 Dale（2016）认为，观察到的语言差异不仅源于语言分化过程中随机变化的积累，还可能反映了语言发展所处的环境。这些迫使语言不断多样化的环境因素本质上包括社会、物理和技术方面（Lupyan 和 Dale，2016）。

Just like birds develop different beaks adapting to different environments, languages and cultures might be undergoing similar changes (Lupyan and Dale 2016). Charles Darwin, in “The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex,” cited Max Müller to make a case for the evolution of language: “A struggle for life is constantly going on amongst the words and grammatical forms in each language. The better, the shorter, the easier forms are constantly gaining the upper hand, and they owe their success to their own inherent virtue.” (Darwin 1871, p. 58). However, this idea of progress in linguistic evolution is considered dysfunctional by some (Labov 1991; Mendívil-Giró 2018) due to its inability to explain the main patterns of linguistic structural diversity; a growing body of research asserts the contrary. The process of language diversification cannot be understood without considering the pressures that several factors (physical, ecological, and social) put on language users in different environments (Bentz et al. 2018).
就像鸟类为适应不同环境而进化出不同的喙一样，语言和文化可能也在经历类似的变化（Lupyan 和 Dale，2016）。查尔斯·达尔文在《人类的由来及性选择》中引用马克斯·缪勒的观点来论证语言的演化：“每种语言中的词汇和语法形式都在不断进行生存斗争。更好、更短、更简单的形式不断占据上风，它们的成功归功于自身的内在优势。”（Darwin，1871，第 58 页）。然而，一些人认为这种语言演化的进步观是无效的（Labov，1991；Mendívil-Giró，2018），因为它无法解释语言结构多样性的主要模式；但越来越多的研究却持相反观点。如果不考虑多种因素（物理、生态和社会）在不同环境中对语言使用者施加的压力，就无法理解语言多样化的过程（Bentz 等人，2018）。

3.1. Ecological Adaptations

3.1. 生态适应性变化

Similar to the communication systems of other species, language may be affected by ecological factors. Physiologically based predictions demonstrate that languages with complex tonality have generally not developed in very cold or otherwise desiccated climates, as air dryness decreases the control of the vocal folds and pitch production, and this, in turn, results in the absence of a (complex) tone system. The geographic–linguistic association operates within continents, major language families, and across language isolates (Everett et al. 2015). However, replication of the study on a different dataset found it was not robust (Roberts 2018). An analysis of over 4,000 language varieties showed a positive association between the language’s degree of reliance on vowels and the typical ambient humidity of a language’s native locale, which is consistent with other studies that focus on the link between aridity (i.e., the lack of effective moisture in a climate) and tonality of language (Everett et al. 2015; Everett 2017), but the robustness was later found to be limited (Roberts 2018).
与其他物种的交流系统类似，语言可能会受到生态因素的影响。基于生理学的预测表明，具有复杂声调的语言通常不会在极冷或干燥的气候中发展，因为空气干燥会降低声带的控制能力和音高产生能力，进而导致（复杂的）声调系统的缺失。这种地理-语言关联在各大洲、主要语系以及孤立语言中均存在（Everett 等人，2015）。然而，在不同数据集上重复该研究时发现，这种关联并不稳健（Roberts，2018）。一项对超过 4000 种语言变体的分析表明，语言对元音的依赖程度与其母语环境的典型空气湿度呈正相关，这与其他关注干旱程度（即气候中有效水分的缺乏）与语言声调之间联系的研究一致（Everett 等人，2015；Everett，2017），但后来发现这种关联性的稳健性有限（Roberts，2018）。

Environments in which higher sound frequencies are less faithfully transmitted due to denser vegetation or higher ambient temperatures seem to be related to the greater use of sounds of lower frequencies (“more sonorous” languages). The results of Maddieson and Coupé (2015) point to a significant relationship between the “consonant-heaviness” of languages and several environmental factors, including tree cover and precipitation (Maddieson and Coupé 2015). Further analysis of spoken samples did not find the relationship significant but identified that the percentage of sonorous material is correlated with the mean annual temperature in the area of the language (Maddieson 2018). Studies that focused on the influence of temperature on languages find that languages spoken in cold, small regions tend to be more complex across a range of linguistic features, such as morphosyntactic complexity, linguistic diversity, word length, and consonant inventory (Lewis and Frank 2016).
在由于植被茂密或环境温度较高而导致高频声音传播不清晰的环境中，语言似乎更倾向于使用低频声音（“更洪亮的”语言）。Maddieson 和 Coupé（2015）的研究结果表明，语言的“辅音密集度”与多个环境因素（包括植被覆盖率和降水量）之间存在显著关联（Maddieson 和 Coupé，2015）。对口语样本的进一步分析并未发现这种关联显著，但发现洪亮语音材料的比例与该语言使用区域的年平均温度相关（Maddieson，2018）。关注温度对语言影响的研究发现，在寒冷、狭小区域使用的语言在一系列语言特征上往往更复杂，例如形态句法复杂性、语言多样性、词长和辅音库（Lewis 和 Frank，2016）。

Another striking example is the observed partial correlation between latitude and the absence or presence of the word for the color blue (Brown and Lindsey 2004; Lindsey and Brown 2002) due to the negative impact of ultraviolet light (UV-B) on the perception of the blue/green distinction (phototoxicity). In high-UV areas, languages without the word for blue prevail, which also correlates with the rates of blue-yellow color vision deficiency in these areas suggesting an evolutionary, physiological cause for both phenomena (Brown and Lindsey 2004; Dediu et al. 2017).
另一个显著的例子是观察到的纬度与表示蓝色的词汇是否存在之间的部分相关性（Brown 和 Lindsey，2004；Lindsey 和 Brown，2002），这是由于紫外线 B（UV-B）对蓝/绿颜色区分感知的负面影响（光毒性）。在高紫外线区域，没有表示蓝色词汇的语言占主导地位，这也与这些地区蓝黄色觉缺陷的发生率相关，表明这两种现象存在演化上的生理原因（Brown 和 Lindsey，2004；Dediu 等人，2017）。

A common criticism of the abovementioned studies is that they are correlational in nature, thus, do not contribute to the understanding of possible mechanisms that underlie linguistic evolutionary processes. In order to improve the methodological robustness of the studies, additional approaches, such as iterated learning, a historical case study, corpus studies, and studying individual speech, was suggested (Roberts 2018). For this reason, several studies tried to experimentally investigate how environmental factors drive the emergence of linguistic conventions. Nölle et al. (2020a) adapted the classical maze game task to confirm that subtle environmental motivations cause the emergence of different communicative conventions in an otherwise identical task, pointing to linguistic adaptations being highly sensitive to factors of the shared task environment. The authors speculated that these kinds of mechanisms identified at a local interactional level might contribute to the systematic global variation observed between different languages.
上述研究的一个常见批评是它们本质上是相关性的，因此无法帮助理解语言演化过程背后可能的机制。为了提高研究的方法学稳健性，研究人员提出了额外的方法，如迭代学习、历史案例研究、语料库研究和个体言语研究（Roberts，2018）。出于这个原因，多项研究试图通过实验探究环境因素如何驱动语言惯例的形成。Nölle 等人（2020a）改编了经典的迷宫游戏任务，证实了细微的环境动机能够在其他条件相同的任务中导致不同交流惯例的出现，这表明语言适应性变化对共同任务环境的因素高度敏感。作者推测，在局部互动层面发现的这类机制可能有助于解释不同语言之间观察到的系统性全球变异。

One of the most striking examples of linguistic adaptation to the environment is whistled languages. The main purpose of whistled languages is to facilitate spoken communication at great distances, but it is also used in other circumstances, such as secrecy, courtship, singing, and communication in noisy environments. Although they are always referred to as languages, they are considered a mode of speech because whistled languages are always based on a spoken language (Meyer 2015).
语言适应环境的最显著例子之一是口哨语。口哨语的主要目的是促进远距离的口语交流，但它也用于其他情况，如保密沟通、求爱、歌唱以及在嘈杂环境中交流。尽管它们通常被称为语言，但实际上被视为一种言语模式，因为口哨语总是以某种口语为基础（Meyer，2015）。

Several hypotheses were put forward to explain the current existence of whistled languages. One of them posits that whistled languages are simply the vestigial remains of a widespread ancient phenomenon. This mode of speech could have been used by prehistoric hunter-gatherers for hunting in groups or signaling a danger in any type of environment (Nettle and Romaine 2000). Another possible explanation is that the actual whistled languages are found only in a small minority of languages due to the erosion of traditional lifestyles and the relative ease of resorting to shouting because whistled speech would generally require more pressure to develop. This argument would be in favor of a key role played by significant environmental constraints in the emergence of whistled speech, which is supported by the observed systematic adaptation of whistled speech to typically constraining and geographically scattered ecological milieux (Meyer 2015).
关于口哨语当前存在的原因，研究人员提出了多种假说。其中一种假说认为，口哨语只是一种广泛存在的古代现象的残余。这种言语模式可能被史前狩猎采集者用于群体狩猎或在任何环境中发出危险信号（Nettle 和 Romaine，2000）。另一种可能的解释是，由于传统生活方式的侵蚀以及大声呼喊相对容易实现，口哨语仅存在于极少数语言中，因为口哨语的发展通常需要更大的压力。这一论点支持了显著的环境限制在口哨语出现过程中所起的关键作用，而口哨语对典型限制性且地理上分散的生态环境的系统性适应也证实了这一点（Meyer，2015）。

It is estimated that approximately 70–80 languages actively use their whistled mode of speech, but the number is rapidly declining due to modern technologies of communication, and most of them are endangered (Meyer 2018). Evidently, whistled speech plays a strong functional role by complementing regular speech under unusual circumstances. Around the world, whistled forms of languages are associated with traditional activities, such as hunting, hill agriculture, or shepherding, in which individuals are relatively isolated and scattered across substantial areas of densely vegetated landscapes. In this type of environment, whistling has a clear advantage over speaking or shouting: acoustic signals can easily overcome ambient conditions and can travel longer distances. For example, La Gomera, one of Spain’s Canary Islands, holds the record for the longest distance of whistled conversations of approximately 1 km (Meyer 2015); others have observed communications at approximately 8 km (Busnel and Classe 1976).
据估计，大约有 70-80 种语言仍在积极使用口哨语模式，但由于现代通信技术的发展，这一数字正在迅速下降，且大多数口哨语都处于濒危状态（Meyer，2018）。显然，口哨语通过在特殊情况下补充常规言语，发挥着重要的功能作用。在全球范围内，口哨语形式的语言与传统活动相关联，如狩猎、山地农业或牧羊业，在这些活动中，人们相对孤立且分散在大面积的茂密植被区域。在这种环境中，口哨语相比普通说话或呼喊具有明显优势：声学信号能够轻松克服环境条件的限制，传播更远的距离。例如，西班牙加那利群岛之一的拉戈梅拉岛保持着最长口哨语交流距离的记录，约为 1 公里（Meyer，2015）；还有人观察到过约 8 公里的口哨语交流（Busnel 和 Classe，1976）。

The principle of whistled speech is straightforward: people articulate words while whistling, which involves acoustic reduction at the produced frequency level and selection of key salient phonetic cues for the corresponding spoken utterances. The resulting signal’s linguistic structure is identical to standard speech. Interestingly, even though the acoustic channel is reduced, whistled sentences remain highly intelligible to trained speakers (Meyer 2015).
口哨语的原理很简单：人们在吹口哨的同时发音，这涉及到在产生的频率层面进行声学简化，并为相应的口语表达选择关键的显著语音线索。由此产生的信号的语言结构与标准言语完全相同。有趣的是，尽管声学渠道被简化，但经过训练的使用者仍能高度理解口哨语句子（Meyer，2015）。

It was suggested that human whistled languages can serve as a model for understanding the coding of information in dolphin whistle communication. Comparing human and dolphin whistles could become a complementary test bench for the development of new methodologies for decoding whistled communication signals by providing new perspectives on structural and organizational aspects of encoding information (Meyer et al. 2021).
有研究表明，人类口哨语可以作为理解海豚口哨交流中信息编码的模型。通过提供信息编码的结构和组织方面的新视角，比较人类和海豚的口哨声可以成为开发解码口哨交流信号新方法的补充测试平台（Meyer 等人，2021）。

Overall, exploring the connection between the structure of languages and the environment in which they are utilized is complicated by several issues. If the ecology of the area was able to influence the language at the stage of its emergence, the amount of information needed to make a conclusive statement about it is scarce. Additionally, most of the studies that focus on the link between environment and language are correlational in nature. Although the overall structural diversity of languages has not been linked with other types of diversity, some aspects, such as morphosyntactic complexity or consonant/vowel inventory, may be affected.
总体而言，探索语言结构与其使用环境之间的联系受到多个问题的困扰。如果该地区的生态环境在语言起源阶段就能够影响语言，那么要对此做出决定性陈述所需的信息量是匮乏的。此外，大多数关注环境与语言之间联系的研究本质上都是相关性的。尽管语言的整体结构多样性尚未与其他类型的多样性建立关联，但某些方面（如形态句法复杂性或辅音/元音库）可能会受到影响。

3.2. Socio-Demographic Adaptations

3.2. 社会人口适应性变化

Apart from the effects of the physical environment and location, languages may be shaped by social and demographic factors. A statistical analysis of 2000 languages revealed strong relationships between the morphological complexity of a language and demographic/socio-historical factors, including the number of language users, geographic spread, and degree of language contact (Lupyan and Dale 2010). It was suggested that languages spoken by large groups have a simpler inflectional morphology than languages spoken by smaller groups. Additionally, languages spoken by large groups are more likely to utilize lexical strategies in place of inflectional morphology when encoding evidentiality, negation, aspect, and possession (Lupyan and Dale 2010). Based on these findings, Dale and Lupyan proposed the linguistic niche hypothesis, which describes the esoteric and exoteric niches for languages. The exoteric linguistic niche includes languages with large numbers of speakers (e.g., English, Swahili, and Hindi), which forces these languages to serve as a means of communication between strangers. Speakers of languages in the exoteric niche, compared with the esoteric niche, are more likely to be non-native speakers or have learned the language from non-native speakers and use the language to speak to individuals from different ethnic and/or linguistic backgrounds. The esoteric niche includes languages like Tatar, Elfdalian, and Algonquin (Dale and Lupyan 2012; Lupyan and Dale 2010, 2016). Linguistically, esoteric languages are more likely to be classified as isolating rather than fusional, have fewer grammatical categories marked on the verb, are more likely to encode negation via analytical strategies than using inflections, are less likely to have indefinite and definite articles, and are less likely to communicate distance distinction demonstratives (Lupyan and Dale 2010). Further studies found only limited support for this hypothesis (Lewis and Frank 2016) or did not find a strong relationship between the grammatical or statistical structure of language and the proportion of non-native speakers (Koplenig 2019).
除了物理环境和地理位置的影响外，语言还可能受到社会和人口因素的塑造。对 2000 种语言的统计分析显示，语言的形态复杂性与人口统计/社会历史因素（包括语言使用者数量、地理分布范围和语言接触程度）之间存在强烈关联（Lupyan 和 Dale，2010）。研究表明，大型群体使用的语言比小型群体使用的语言具有更简单的屈折形态。此外，当编码证据性、否定、体和领属关系时，大型群体使用的语言更倾向于使用词汇策略而非屈折形态（Lupyan 和 Dale，2010）。基于这些发现，Dale 和 Lupyan 提出了语言生态位假说，该假说描述了语言的内隐生态位和外显生态位。外显语言生态位包括使用者数量众多的语言（如英语、斯瓦希里语和印地语），这些语言被迫成为陌生人之间的交流工具。与内隐生态位的语言使用者相比，外显生态位的语言使用者更有可能是非母语使用者，或从非母语使用者那里学习该语言，并使用该语言与不同种族和/或语言背景的人交流。内隐生态位的语言包括鞑靼语、埃尔夫达利语和阿尔冈昆语等（Dale 和 Lupyan，2012；Lupyan 和 Dale，2010，2016）。在语言特征上，内隐语言更有可能被归类为孤立语而非融合语，动词上标记的语法范畴更少，更倾向于通过分析策略而非屈折形式编码否定，不太可能有不定冠词和定冠词，也不太可能使用表示距离区分的指示词（Lupyan 和 Dale，2010）。后续研究仅发现该假说得到了有限的支持（Lewis 和 Frank，2016），或者未发现语言的语法或统计结构与非母语使用者比例之间存在强烈关联（Koplenig，2019）。

Winters et al. (2015) experimentally investigated the role of the communicative situation in which an utterance is produced and how it influences the emergence of three types of linguistic systems: underspecified languages, holistic systems, and systematic languages. Using a discrimination task in a communication game and manipulating whether the feature dimension shape was relevant or not in discriminating between two referents, it was established that different linguistic systems emerged. Furthermore, experimental languages gradually developed to encode information relevant to the communicative task in a given situational context. These results suggest that language systems adapt to their contextual niche over iterated learning.
Winters 等人（2015）通过实验探究了话语产生的交流情境的作用，以及它如何影响三种语言系统的出现：未明确指定的语言系统、整体系统和系统语言。在一项交流游戏中使用辨别任务，并操纵形状特征维度在区分两个指称对象时是否相关，结果发现出现了不同的语言系统。此外，实验语言逐渐发展出编码特定情境背景下与交流任务相关信息的能力。这些结果表明，语言系统通过迭代学习适应其语境生态位。

Another interesting observation was made about the influence of population size on rates of language evolution. The rates of gain and loss of cognate words for basic vocabulary were analyzed in Polynesian languages. Larger populations were observed to have higher rates of gain of new words, while smaller populations had higher rates of word loss, which suggests that demographic factors may affect rates of language evolution and that rates of gain and loss are affected in different ways. However, the authors found that the results were strikingly consistent with general predictions of evolutionary models, paralleling positive selection in the case of greater rates of word gain in larger populations, and loss of diversity in small populations and greater rates of word loss (Bromham et al. 2015).
关于人口规模对语言演化速度的影响，研究人员还发现了一个有趣的现象。研究人员分析了波利尼西亚语言中基本词汇同源词的增减速度。结果观察到，较大的人口群体具有更高的新词获得率，而较小的人口群体具有更高的词汇丢失率，这表明人口统计因素可能会影响语言演化速度，且词汇增减速度受到的影响方式不同。然而，作者发现这些结果与演化模型的一般预测惊人地一致：大型群体中更高的词汇获得率类似于正选择，而小型群体中多样性的丧失和更高的词汇丢失率也与演化模型预测相符（Bromham 等人，2015）。

An inquiry into language evolution that was made using estimates of cognate replacement for 200 concepts on an Indo-European language tree spanning 6–10 millennia to measure lexical evolution rates demonstrated that negative valence correlates with faster cognate replacement, even while controlling for frequency of use. Follow-up analyses showed that it is most robust for adjectives, does not consistently reach statistical significance for verbs, and never reaches significance for nouns (Jackson et al. 2023).
一项关于语言演化的研究利用跨越 6-10 千年的印欧语系语言树中 200 个概念的同源词替换估计来测量词汇演化速度，结果表明，即使控制了使用频率，负面情感效价仍与更快的同源词替换相关。后续分析显示，这种相关性对于形容词最为稳健，对于动词并不始终具有统计显著性，而对于名词则从未达到统计显著性（Jackson 等人，2023）。

Socio-demographic pressures are also known to lead to the emergence of new languages, the investigation of which can shed light on the process of language evolution. Among such languages are creoles, which arise from the need for communication between groups with no shared language. Creoles are typically formed when speakers of different languages (lexifiers and substrate languages) come into prolonged contact, often in contexts such as colonization, trade, or slavery (DeGraff 2005). Unlike pidgins—simplified contact languages with limited structure—creoles develop full grammatical complexity, including syntax, morphology, and semantics, within a few generations (Bickerton 1981). This rapid emergence of linguistic complexity supports the idea that language adaptation is driven by communicative needs, as creoles evolve to fulfill the full range of social and cognitive functions required by their speakers.
社会人口压力也被认为会催生新语言的出现，对这些语言的研究有助于揭示语言演化的过程。克里奥尔语便是这类语言之一，它源于无共同语言群体之间的交流需求。克里奥尔语通常形成于不同语言使用者（词汇来源语使用者和底层语言使用者）长期接触的场景，例如殖民、贸易或奴隶制时期（DeGraff，2005）。与洋泾浜语（结构有限的简化接触语言）不同，克里奥尔语会在几代人之内发展出完整的语法复杂性，包括句法、形态和语义（Bickerton，1981）。这种语言复杂性的快速形成支持了“语言适应性变化由交流需求驱动”的观点，因为克里奥尔语会不断演化，以满足使用者所需的全部社会和认知功能。

Another example of socio-demographically driven language change is language shift, wherein a community abandons its native language in favor of another, often due to economic, political, or social pressures. Language shift can lead to the extinction of minority languages, but it can also drive structural changes in the dominant language as it absorbs features from the shifting language (Thomason and Kaufman 1988). For instance, English spoken in parts of Ireland has adopted grammatical structures from Irish, such as the use of “after” to mark perfect aspect (“I’m after eating”), demonstrating how contact-induced change shapes linguistic systems (Harris 1984).
社会人口因素驱动语言变化的另一个例子是语言转换，即一个群体因经济、政治或社会压力而放弃母语，转而使用另一种语言。语言转换可能导致少数民族语言消亡，但也会促使主导语言在吸收转换语言的特征时发生结构性变化（Thomason 和 Kaufman，1988）。例如，爱尔兰部分地区使用的英语就借鉴了爱尔兰语的语法结构，如用“after”表示完成体（“I’m after eating”，意为“我刚吃过”），这体现了接触引发的变化如何塑造语言系统（Harris，1984）。

3.3. Technological Adaptations

3.3. 技术适应性变化

Technological advancements have emerged as one of the most powerful drivers of language evolution in recent decades. The rise of the Internet, smartphones, and instant messaging has created new communicative contexts that demand rapid, concise, and often multimodal expression. These contexts have fostered the development of new linguistic conventions, including abbreviations (e.g., “LOL” for “laugh out loud”), emojis, and syntactic simplifications (e.g., omitting subjects in text messages: “Got it” instead of “I got it”) (Crystal 2008).
近几十年来，技术进步已成为语言演化最强大的驱动力之一。互联网、智能手机和即时通讯工具的兴起创造了新的交流场景，这些场景要求表达快速、简洁且通常具有多模态特征。这些场景催生了新的语言惯例，包括缩写（如用“LOL”表示“laugh out loud”，意为“大笑”）、表情符号，以及句法简化（如短信中省略主语：用“Got it”代替“I got it”，意为“明白了”）（Crystal，2008）。

One notable feature of tech-mediated communication is the blurring of oral and written modalities. Text-based platforms (e.g., WhatsApp, Twitter) often incorporate features of spoken language, such as informality, turn-taking, and pragmatic cues (e.g., “um,” “like”), while also developing unique written conventions (e.g., capitalization for emphasis: “SO EXCITED!”) (Baron 2008). This hybrid modality has led to the emergence of “netspeak” or “digital discourse,” a distinct register characterized by its flexibility and adaptability to the constraints of digital media (Herring 2007).
技术媒介交流的一个显著特征是口语和书面语模态的融合。基于文本的平台（如 WhatsApp、Twitter）通常会融入口语特征，例如非正式性、轮流发言和语用提示词（如“um”“like”），同时也会形成独特的书面惯例（如用大写字母强调：“SO EXCITED!”，意为“太兴奋了！”）（Baron，2008）。这种混合模态催生了“网络用语”或“数字话语”，这是一种独特的语域，其特点是灵活且能适应数字媒体的限制（Herring，2007）。

Technological change also influences language through the introduction of new vocabulary. Fields such as artificial intelligence, social media, and biotechnology have generated countless neologisms (e.g., “algorithm,” “influencer,” “CRISPR”) that have quickly entered mainstream usage (Hale 2001). Additionally, machine translation and language learning apps have increased cross-linguistic contact, leading to greater borrowing of words and phrases between languages. For example, Chinese has adopted terms like “云服务” (cloud service) and “区块链” (blockchain) from English, while English has incorporated “feng shui” (风水) and “jiaozi” (饺子) from Chinese (Li 2020).
技术变革还通过引入新词汇影响语言。人工智能、社交媒体和生物技术等领域催生了无数新词（如“algorithm”“influencer”“CRISPR”），这些词汇迅速进入主流使用场景（Hale，2001）。此外，机器翻译和语言学习应用增加了跨语言接触，导致语言间的词汇和短语借用更为频繁。例如，中文吸收了“云服务”（cloud service）、“区块链”（blockchain）等英语术语，而英语则纳入了“feng shui”（风水）、“jiaozi”（饺子）等中文词汇（Li，2020）。

4. Discussion

4. 讨论

The present review highlights that language evolution is a dynamic process shaped by multiple interconnected factors: ecological constraints, socio-demographic dynamics, and technological advancements. These factors act as selective pressures that drive languages to adapt, ensuring they remain effective tools for communication within changing contexts. The shift from innateness-based to usage-based theories of language origin reflects a growing recognition that language is not a static, genetically determined system but a flexible skill that evolves in response to the needs of its users.
本综述强调，语言演化是一个由多种相互关联的因素塑造的动态过程：生态限制、社会人口动态和技术进步。这些因素作为选择压力推动语言适应变化，确保语言在不断变化的场景中仍是有效的交流工具。语言起源理论从天赋论向基于使用的理论转变，反映了人们日益认识到语言并非静态的、由基因决定的系统，而是一种能响应使用者需求而演化的灵活技能。

Multimodal theories of language origin have emerged as a unifying framework, integrating evidence from gestural, vocal, and written modalities. This perspective acknowledges that language likely evolved from the interplay of multiple communication channels, rather than a single primary modality. Similarly, research on language dispersion has benefited from interdisciplinary methods, linking linguistic data to genetic and archaeological evidence to trace the spread of languages across human populations.
多模态语言起源理论已成为一种统一框架，整合了来自手势、语音和书写模态的证据。这一观点认为，语言很可能源于多种交流渠道的相互作用，而非单一的主要模态。同样，语言扩散研究也得益于跨学科方法，将语言数据与遗传和考古证据相结合，以追踪语言在人类群体中的传播路径。

Language adaptation continues to unfold in response to contemporary pressures. Ecological factors shape phonetic and lexical features, socio-demographic changes drive morphological and syntactic evolution, and technology transforms the very nature of communicative interaction. The rapid evolution of digital discourse, in particular, demonstrates that language is highly sensitive to new contexts, developing novel conventions to meet emerging communicative needs.
语言仍在响应当代压力而不断适应变化。生态因素塑造语音和词汇特征，社会人口变化推动形态和句法演化，技术则改变了交流互动的本质。尤其是数字话语的快速演化，表明语言对新场景高度敏感，会发展出新的惯例来满足新兴的交流需求。

5. Conclusions

5. 结论

Language is a product of evolution, shaped by the same principles that govern the evolution of other human traits. Its origin is rooted in the communicative needs of early humans, with multimodal interactions playing a key role in its emergence. Over millennia, language has evolved in response to ecological, socio-demographic, and technological pressures, adapting its structure and function to fit changing contexts.
语言是演化的产物，遵循与其他人类特征演化相同的原则。其起源植根于早期人类的交流需求，多模态互动在其形成过程中发挥了关键作用。数千年来，语言响应生态、社会人口和技术压力而演化，调整自身结构和功能以适应不断变化的场景。

The shift toward usage-based and multimodal theories has enriched our understanding of language evolution, highlighting its dynamic and context-dependent nature. Future research should continue to embrace interdisciplinary approaches, integrating data from linguistics, psychology, genetics, and technology to unravel the complex mechanisms underlying language change. As human societies and technologies continue to evolve, language will undoubtedly adapt, remaining a vital tool for communication and cultural transmission.
向基于使用和多模态理论的转变丰富了我们对语言演化的理解，突显了其动态性和情境依赖性。未来的研究应继续采用跨学科方法，整合来自语言学、心理学、遗传学和技术领域的数据，以揭示语言变化背后的复杂机制。随着人类社会和技术的持续演化，语言无疑将继续适应，始终作为交流和文化传播的重要工具。

Author Contributions

作者贡献

Conceptualization, I.M., K.K. and E.L.G.; methodology, I.M. and K.K.; validation, E.L.G.; formal analysis, I.M.; investigation, I.M. and K.K.; resources, E.L.G.; data curation, I.M.; writing—original draft preparation, I.M. and K.K.; writing—review and editing, E.L.G.; visualization, I.M.; supervision, E.L.G.; project administration, E.L.G.; funding acquisition, E.L.G. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
概念构思：I.M.、K.K. 和 E.L.G.；方法学：I.M. 和 K.K.；验证：E.L.G.；形式分析：I.M.；研究实施：I.M. 和 K.K.；资源协调：E.L.G.；数据整理：I.M.；初稿撰写：I.M. 和 K.K.；审阅与编辑：E.L.G.；可视化：I.M.；监督管理：E.L.G.；项目管理：E.L.G.；资金获取：E.L.G.。所有作者均已阅读并同意发表的手稿版本。

Funding

资金支持

This research was funded by the John Templeton Foundation, grant number 61048.
本研究由约翰·邓普顿基金会资助，资助编号为 61048。

Acknowledgments

致谢

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.
作者感谢匿名评审人员提出的有益意见和建议。

Conflicts of Interest

利益冲突声明

The authors declare no conflict of interest.
作者声明无利益冲突。

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论文观点清单

一、语言演化的底层原则

• 语言演化遵循人类演化规律，是为实现共同交流目标发展的技能，而非独立存在的系统。
• 语言随人类需求动态调整，新的情境适应与语言形式持续涌现，体现交流目标驱动的本质。

二、语言起源的核心理论转向

• 从单模态（手势优先/言语优先）、人类特有论，转向多模态、基于使用和目标驱动的理论。
• 否定语言天赋论，认为语言通过实际使用的抽象化、图式化形成，共同交流目标解释语言共性。
• 书写并非口语的次要补充，其起源可能与代币系统相关，对人类认知和社会发展有重要影响。

三、语言起源的模态相关观点

• 多模态起源理论为主流，强调听觉、视觉等渠道的复杂互动，镜像系统是重要演化基础。
• 手语与言语存在演化关联，手部动作的模仿与技能共享是语言形成的早期步骤。

四、语言扩散与人类演化的关联

• 语言扩散与人类种群迁移、基因分布存在部分对应，但并非完全同步，存在约20%的不匹配。
• 系列奠基者效应（SFE）可能影响语言音素库变化，但存在欧亚大陆中心与非洲中心的模型争议。

五、语言适应性变化的驱动因素

1. 生态因素

• 气候（干旱、温度）、植被、纬度等影响语言的声调、音素构成及词汇（如“蓝色”词汇的存在与否）。
• 口哨语是语言适应环境的典型案例，为远距离或特殊场景交流提供功能性补充。

2. 社会人口因素

• 语言使用者数量、地理分布、接触程度影响形态复杂性，大型群体语言的屈折形态更简单。
• 社会接触催生新语言（如克里奥尔语），语言转换（母语替换）会引发主导语言的结构变化。
• 人口规模影响词汇演化速度，大型群体新词获得率更高，小型群体词汇丢失率更高。

3. 技术因素

• 互联网、即时通讯等技术创造新交流场景，催生网络用语、缩写、表情符号等新型语言惯例。
• 技术促进跨语言接触，推动新词产生与词汇借用，模糊口语与书面语的模态界限。

六、语言的神经关联特征

• 语言相关神经机制是多区域、多回路的分布式网络，涉及语义、句法、语音信息的并行处理。
• 语言网络具有多功能性，与心理旋转、音乐句法处理等非语言功能存在神经关联。

七、研究方法与未来方向

• 跨学科方法（语言学、遗传学、心理学、技术科学）为语言演化研究提供关键支撑。
• 未来需通过更复杂的因果图构建、实证研究，揭示语言变化的具体机制。

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语言演化研究的批判性反思与继承性开新

——序中译版《语言的进化生物学探索》

作者：杜 安¹，李瑞林²
（1. 南方医科大学外国语学院，广东 广州 510515；2. 广东外语外贸大学高级翻译学院，广东 广州 510420）
期刊信息：2023年 5月 第 46卷 第 3期 《外国语》（Journal of Foreign Languages）
文章编号：1004-5139(2023)03-0102-10
中图分类号：
文献标识码：A

摘要

经过半个多世纪的发展，生物语言学逐渐形成了以乔姆斯基为代表的生成派生物语言学研究模式，采取从语言现象到心智模型及至人脑神经生理的研究进路。然而，关于语言演化，该模式却未给出富有解释力的一致性方案。其中一个重要原因是，它在很大程度上忽视了人类语言与其他种群的“类语言”、人类的语言能力与其行为能力和认知能力的相关性，这正是以利伯曼为代表的达尔文派生物语言学模式关注的焦点。《语言的进化生物学探索》一书集语言演化研究成果之大成，采取从现代综合进化论到神经生理机制及至语言表征的研究取向。该书英文版自 2006年杀青以来，一直未引起国内学界的应有关注。中译版增加了作者近十余年来获得的新证据和新思考，对于深入探索语言演化的根本性问题，具有认识论和方法论意义。

关键词

语言演化；生物语言学；乔姆斯基模式；达尔文模式

A Critique of Language Evolution Studies for Blazing New Trails: A Translators’ Note on the Chinese Edition of Toward an Evolutionary Biology of Language

Authors: DU An¹, LI Ruilin²
(1. School of Foreign Studies, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China; 2. School of Interpreting & Translation Studies, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou 510420, China)

Abstract

The Chomskyan Biolinguistic Model (CBM), a dominant one in Generative Biolinguistics over the last five decades, follows a pathway of analysis from language phenomena to mental models and neurophysiological mechanisms of the human brain. But it has failed to provide a coherent and convincing interpretation of language evolution, largely due to its neglect of the possible links between human languages and the “quasi-languages” of other species as well as those between linguistic competence and behavioral and cognitive abilities. To bridge the knowledge gap, such links are highlighted in the Darwinian Biolinguistic Model (DBM) as represented by Philip Lieberman. His monograph titled Toward an Evolutionary Biology of Language brings together the author’s long-term research findings on language evolution, following a pathway of analysis from the modern synthetic theory of evolution to neurophysiological mechanisms and language representations. The English edition was first published in 2006 but has not yet received due attention among the Chinese scholars working in this area ever since. It is worthy of note that in the present Chinese edition, Lieberman has added the latest developments in language evolution studies and his multidimensional reflections thereof. In a nutshell, Lieberman’s work holds both epistemological and methodological implications for further inquiry into some fundamental aspects of language evolution.

Keywords

language evolution; biolinguistics; Chomskyan Biolinguistic Model (CBM); Darwinian Biolinguistic Model (DBM)

本文作者在翻译《语言的进化生物学探索》过程中得到了利伯曼教授诸多资料支持及书信释疑，在本文定稿时亦吸收了《外国语》编辑部和匿名评审专家的宝贵修改意见，在此一并诚致谢意。

1. 引言

科学研究始于问题，从老问题到新问题的发展进程也就是知识增长的过程，其中离不开猜测与反驳(Popper 1979:258)。猜测与反驳集中体现在对已有知识的批判性反思，由此指向对未知领域的继承性开新，从这个意义上讲，《语言的进化生物学探索》①（下文简称《探索》）就是一部极具质疑与探索品质的研究成果。进化生物学家恩斯特·迈尔曾指出：“科学的精髓在于持续不断地解决问题的过程，以理解我们所处的这个世界……曾经引起巨大争议的问题往往也会持续进入现代科学，不了解相关历史就无法完全理解当下的许多争论”(Mayr 1982:1)。鉴于此，为了帮助读者更好地把握《探索》一书的要旨及其学术价值，本文首先简要梳理生物语言学的发展史，描述该领域的主要研究议题及争论焦点，进而阐发本书的质疑对象及探索进路。

① 菲利普·利伯曼. 语言的进化生物学探索[M]. 李瑞林，杜安，译. 北京：商务印书馆，2021.

2. 关于生物语言学

人类是唯一掌握复杂语言能力的现存物种，这似乎是一个不争的事实。那么，为什么只有人类获得了这一能力？这既是一个由来已久的哲学命题，又是一个极具争议的科学问题。对这一问题的现代求解引发了语言学与生物学的一次深度结合。1974年在美国麻省理工学院召开了一次题为“生物语言学之辩”(A debate on bio-linguistics)的研讨会，诺贝尔生理学奖得主弗朗索瓦·雅各布（François Jacob）、萨尔瓦多·卢里亚（Salvador Luria）等生物学家和乔姆斯基、莫里斯·哈勒（Morris Halle）、皮亚泰利-帕尔马里尼（Piattelli-Palmarini）等语言学家进行了一次跨学科讨论，自此确立了“生物语言学(biolinguistics)②”这一名称(Chomsky 2006; Piattelli-Palmarini 2013)。而此前埃里克·伦纳伯格（Eric Lenneberg）于 1967年出版的《语言的生物学基础》(Biological Foundations of Language ③)一书“奠定了关于语言生物学现代研究的基础”(乔姆斯基 2018:229)。亦有观点认为，乔姆斯基于 1957年出版的《句法结构》(Syntactic Structure)以及 1959年发表的“B.F.斯金纳《言语行为》述评”(“A Review of B.F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior”)一文开启了现代语言学研究的生物学转向(Martins & Boeckx 2016)。

对此，博尔克斯与格罗曼(Boeckx & Grohmann 2007)区分了生物语言学的两种涵义，即“强义生物语言学”(biolinguistics in the strong sense)与“弱义生物语言学”(biolinguistics in the weak sense)：

• 前者指语言学研究的“常规业务”(business as usual)，即始发于语法特征的研究与发现（如乔姆斯基开创的生成语法研究）；
• 后者指探究语言的生物学基础的跨学科研究（如伦纳伯格关于语言的生物学基础问题的研究）。

二者的研究目标是一致的：试图揭示语言发生和发展的内生机制。

② 事实上，“生物语言学”(biolinguistics)这一提法至少在 20世纪 20年代就已出现，及至 20世纪 50年代已引起学界关注。1950年，米德与迈斯肯斯（Meader & Muyskens 1950）合作出版的《生物语言学手册》一书标题中明确使用了这一概念，只是其内涵和范畴与乔姆斯基、伦纳伯格等人所倡导的现代生物语言学有所不同(Martins & Boeckx 2016; 王强 2016)。
 
③ 乔姆斯基题为“语言的形式本质”(The Formal Nature of Language)的论文还收录在该书的附录部分。该书作者伦纳伯格(1921-1975)逝世次年，美国普莱纽姆出版社出版了《语言的神经心理学：埃里克·伦纳伯格纪念文集》(Rieber 1976)，其中乔姆斯基“论语言能力的生物学基础”(On the Biological Basis of Language Capacities)一文作为开篇论文；2017年《生物语言学》杂志在伦纳伯格逝世 50周年之际推出一期纪念专刊，集中回顾了伦纳伯格 1967年奠基之作的历史贡献及之后 50年生物语言学的进展，其中还收录了一篇专访乔姆斯基的文章。

不可否认，乔姆斯基和伦纳伯格开启了现代语言学研究的“生物学转向”(a biological turn)，使语言学研究从重“外在描述”的行为主义传统走向了一种“向内求”的认知新方向。1974年的这场生物语言学研讨会之后一系列生物语言学专题会议相继召开，相关研究团队和机构不断涌现（如哈佛大学医学院生物语言学小组[Harvard Medical School Biolinguistic Group]等）(Jenkins 2013)。自 20世纪 80年代中期至 20世纪末，生物语言学研究进入中期发展阶段，即皮亚泰利-帕尔马里尼所谓的“低垂果实”的收获期，具体表现为分子遗传学的发展引发进化论与演化 - 发育(evo-devo)的“有机融合”，语言学研究对语言模块性(modularity)的深入认识等(Piattelli-Palmarini 2013)。

进入 21世纪，生物语言学研究呈现快速发展之势，标志性事件包括：

1. 2001年《自然》(Nature)杂志发表了拉伊等人对 FOXP2基因（即所谓的语言基因）的研究发现(Lai et al. 2001)；
2. 2002年，豪泽、乔姆斯基和菲奇（Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch 2002）在《科学》(Science)杂志发表了《语言机能：是什么、谁有之以及如何演化？》(The Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who Has It, and How Did It Evolve?)一文，其中区分了“广义语言机能(the faculty of language in the broad sense, FLB)”与“狭义语言机能(the faculty of language in the narrow sense, FLN)”，提出了语言共性与语言个性的理论假设，此后很长一段时间 FLN都是该领域的基本假设之一；
3. 2007年《生物语言学》(Biolinguistics)杂志创刊，注重从生成语法角度探索语言的生物学基础，并倡导跨学科的研究取向(Boeckx & Grohmann 2007)；
4. 同年，迪·休洛（Anna Maria Di Sciullo）等发起成立了“生物语言学国际网”(The International Network in Biolinguistics, http://www.biolinguistics.uqam.ca)，旨在“通过建立一个推动多学科研究的动态空间，解决生物语言学的诸多问题”(Di Sciullo 2010:149)；
5. 2013年，《剑桥生物语言学手册》(The Cambridge Handbook of Biolinguistics)出版，汇集了生物语言学研究半个多世纪以来的知识积累和最新成果；
6. 2016年，乔姆斯基相继出版了《我们是何种生物？》(What Kind of Creatures Are We?)和《为何只有我们：语言及其演化》(Why Only Us: Language and Evolution, 与罗伯特·C.贝里克[Robert C. Berwick]合著)，进一步阐发了其生物语言学的理论假设和新近主张。

回顾生物语言学半个多世纪的学术史，乔姆斯基对生物语言学的发展影响深刻，其于 1968年出版的《语言与思维》(Language and Mind)一书被认为是“生物学意义上的一次突破”(a biologistic breakthrough)(Pennisi & Falzone 2016)。时至今日，乔姆斯基早年提出的五个基本问题依然是生物语言学试图回答的核心问题：

1. 语言知识包含哪些内容？
2. 语言知识是如何获得的？
3. 语言知识如何应用？
4. 语言知识涉及哪些大脑机制？
5. 语言知识是如何演化的？(Chomsky 1986, 1988, 1993; Jenkins 2000; Boeckx 2011)。

可以说，生物语言学领域逐渐形成了一种所谓的“乔姆斯基生物语言学模式”(Chomskyan Biolinguistic Model, 下文简称“乔氏模式”)(Pennisi & Falzone 2016)。乔氏模式的核心主张大体可归纳为三个方面：结构与功能的关系、复杂性的程度与性质、语言官能的独特性(ibid.)。然而，对于上述主张，《探索》一书的作者菲利普·利伯曼（Philip Lieberman）却提出了根本性质疑，开启了另一探索方向；具体而言，利伯曼在批判性地反思乔氏模式的基础上，继承现代综合进化论思想，辅以多学科方法和经验证据，开创了生物语言学研究的另一种模式——“达尔文生物语言学模式”(Darwinian Biolinguistic Model, 下文简称“达尔文模式”)(ibid.)。下一节简要对比上述两种模式，试图澄清二者的主要分歧。

3. 利伯曼对乔氏生物语言学模式的质疑

要理解利伯曼所倡导的进化生物语言学模式，就不得不从利伯曼与乔姆斯基生物语言观的主要分歧谈起。如果说乔姆斯基的生物语言学采用了“语言现象→心智模型→人脑神经生理”的研究取向(顾曰国 2010:301)，那么利伯曼所倡导的进化生物语言学则采取了一条完全不同的路径，即“现代综合进化论→神经生理机制→语言表征”的研究进路。具体而言，利伯曼的语言演化观以现代综合进化论为立论前提(Lieberman 1986)，认为语言演化是多器官、多功能协同进化的结果。利伯曼通过神经、生理、解剖、人类考古、行为对比等多方证据试图论证语言发生与发展的生物学机制，进而解释在语言系统中言语、词汇、句法等层面的具体表征。只有理解利伯曼与乔姆斯基研究立足点与研究路径的根本性差异，才能较好地理解二者之间的争论焦点。概而言之，利伯曼和乔姆斯基生物语言学模式的主要分歧至少体现在如下三个方面。

3.1 语言器官是否存在？

显然就乔氏模式而言，从“语言能力(language capacity)”(Chomsky 1976)，到“语言机能”(language faculty)(Chomsky 1986)，再到“狭义语言机能”(FLN)(Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch 2002)，体现了乔姆斯基对语言生物基础的认知更进，然而一种假定的专司语言功能的生物器官一直是该模式的隐含前提。语言本质上被视为一种“身体的器官”(an organ of the body)，语言器官与视觉系统、消化系统或免疫系统一样，是一种具有内部完整性的复杂有机体的组成部分(Chomsky 2005, 2007)。

而在利伯曼看来，语言是多器官综合进化的结果，并不存在某一特定的、人类物种特有的语言器官，调节人类语言的神经机制同时也调节人类认知、运动、情感等其他行为方式（见《探索》第七章）。如果倒推一步，语言器官可以认为是乔姆斯基生成语法所主张的内在语言(I-语言)的“寓所”，而利伯曼对语言器官的否定可以说从根本上动摇了乔氏生物语言学模式的理论根基，这也是造成二者生物语言观分野的根源所在。

理解了这一点，也就不难理解二者语言功能观的根本差异：

• 乔姆斯基(2010)主张语言的首要功用是其内在用途，即用于思维；
• 利伯曼坚持认为“语言的首要作用在于交流”(Lieberman 2015)。

就语言习得观而言：

• 乔姆斯基着力于“语言习得装置”(language acquisition device)的构建(Chomsky 2007)；
• 利伯曼秉持“模仿与联想学习”(imitation and associative learning)的语言习得观（见《探索》第四章）。

3.2 人类的语言能力是不是跳跃式演化的结果？

乔姆斯基并不否认语言是生物进化的结果，但他也一再提示真正进化的不是具体语言，而是语言能力，即普遍语法(UG)(Chomsky 2002, 乔姆斯基 2018)。更为关键的问题是，语言究竟经历了怎样的演化过程？在最近出版的《我们是何种生物》一书中，乔姆斯基根据有限的证据推测，语言并非渐变出现的，而是经历一次“跳跃式”的突变过程，正是此次突变使得大脑经历了一次“轻微的重组”(a slight rewiring)进而产生了“默集”(merge)④，从而奠定了人类无限的、创造性思维的基础(Chomsky 2016:xiii)。

关于这次突变的时间，乔姆斯基赞同人类学家伊恩·塔特萨尔（Ian Tattersall）的推测，大约在距今 5~10万年的时间段(Chomsky 2016:40)，在新近的论述中，乔姆斯基(2022:62,70)进一步区分了物种（包括语言）进化演变的三个主要阶段：“革新阶段”(innovative stage)、“重构阶段”(reconstructive stage)以及“筛选阶段”(winnowing stage)。需要指出的是，在缺乏充分证据的情况下，关于语言出现的时间还仅仅是推测而已，而且对于乔姆斯基而言语言演化本身并非其关注的焦点，但对于利伯曼来说，这个问题却是其着墨颇多的核心问题。

利伯曼 2015年在《公共科学图书馆·生物学》(PLoS Biology)杂志上以“语言并非在 10万年前突现”(“Language Did Not Spring Forth 100,000 Years Ago”)为题，针锋相对地反驳了乔姆斯基的语言演化观，认为自然选择同样作用于语言，且语言演化经历了一个漫长而复杂的渐变进程，跨越了 50多万年(Lieberman 2015)。此外，利伯曼同时认为，人类的句法能力同样经历了一个演化的过程，并非“一次神秘的跳跃式演化”的结果(Lieberman 1986:703)。

利伯曼同时指出，研究非人类灵长目动物（如黑猩猩）的交际系统，对于了解人类语言的关键属性（言语）具有重要启示意义(Lieberman 2015)。然而，就语言演化研究而言，乔姆斯基(2010:121)曾明确指出，任何将重点放在交际或感知 - 运动系统等方面的方法都将是一种严重的误导。可见，二者在这一问题上也是针锋相对的，这其实也牵涉出他们的另一个根本分歧点，即语言的独特性问题。

④ Merge一般译作“合并”，在《探索》一书中译为“默集”，主要考虑有二：其一，Merge本身就是创生概念，内涵丰富，“合并”似有简化概念之嫌；其二，“默集”一说采用音译，兼顾意释（默会、合成），意在引起读者再思考。

3.3 语言是不是人类的独有属性？

语言是人类的一种“特有能力，本质上与智力无关”，而语言机能（亦即 I-语言）具有“内在性”(internalist)、“个体性”(individual)以及“内涵性”(intensional)(Chomsky 2006)，这可以说是乔氏生物语言学理论的一个基本前提。乔姆斯基继承并发展了笛卡尔语言天赋论，认为语言是“人类的一种共有特征”，显然本质上相较于其他物种是独一无二的，并且语言经历从“天赋”(genetic endowment)的“初始态”(initial state)一直到青春期的“稳定态”(steady state)的发展过程(Chomsky 1993:47)。

语言的独特性进而被抽象为一种唯递归性假说，即狭义语言机能(FLN)的内核——递归性运算为人类所独有(Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch 2002)。乔姆斯基同时批驳了通过动物交际解释人类语言“演化”的做法，认为这种做法非但没有支持其演化的前提，反而更清晰地证明了“人类语言似乎是一种独一无二的现象，而在动物世界中并没有显著的可类比之物(significant analogue)”(Chomsky 2006:58-59)。

而这些关于人类语言独特性的主张恰恰是利伯曼质疑与批评的要害之处。利伯曼曾经直言不讳地表示，他和乔姆斯基等人的争论最终可归结为对人类语言的“独特性”(uniqueness)的观念之别(Lieberman 1986:703)。利伯曼坚持认为，所谓语言（以及认知）的“独特性”其实在其他动物身上亦有所表现，只是程度有所降低而已；他以人类言语的“特异性”(singularity)为切入口，通过物种对比、个体发育对比、计算机模拟等方式，试图证明人类言语演化所表现出的生物连续性（见《探索》第三章）。关于语言独特性问题，或许罗斯卡 - 哈迪（Røska-Hardy 2009:209）的观点值得参考：从进化的角度看，所有物种都具有其他物种所不具有的独特性，而就独特性本身而言，我们人类并不独特。重要的是，不同物种行为、认知等方面的对比研究为探究人类（语言）的独特性提供了一个重要支点。

当然，利伯曼与乔姆斯基生物语言观的分歧也不仅仅表现在上述三个方面，同时也并不是说二者毫无共识可言。二者至少存在两方面的基本共识：其一，人类具有掌握并使用语言的能力，这是人类生物性的一种表现方式；其二，人类的这种能力可从生物学角度进行有效研究(Fitch 2009:283-284)。实际上，乔姆斯基也注意到了利伯曼关于人类喉部下降的生理学证据，但他认为这只是边缘性问题，而关于感知 - 思维系统，从现存非人类灵长目种群那里所获得的证据甚少(Chomsky 2002:150-151)。此外，利伯曼也认同乔姆斯基关于先天语言能力的主张，即人类具有语言能力所需的“先天生物能力”，而差别在于利伯曼提出了“此种能力进化的一个生物学框架”(Lieberman 1987:1521)。利伯曼的这一“生物学框架”在《探索》一书中得以凝练与升华，形成了关于语言演化的“一套连贯的达尔文进化学说”(Parker 2007:178)。那么，这一套学说还有哪些值得注意的特色呢？换言之，《探索》一书还有哪些主要贡献呢？这是下一节讨论的内容。

4. 探索语言演化的生物学机制

正如书名中“进化”一词所示，达尔文的进化论是《探索》的认识论基础。第一章开篇引用了现代综合进化论奠基者杜布赞斯基的名言：“没有进化论的观照，就无所谓生物学”(Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution)(Dobzhansky 1973)。为了让读者了解其综合进化论主张，第一章以较大篇幅介绍了进化论的一些主要概念，如自然选择、变异、生存竞争、偶然事件，还包括分子遗传学、演化发育生物学等，为主体部分的讨论提供了重要的认知基础。概而言之，基于多器官综合进化论的理论前提，《探索》以言语及其器官演化为切入口，通过生物对比、个体发育对比与多种新技术手段支持下的多元证据，试图论证言语生成与感知的神经生理机制，进而为理论语言学打开了另一扇窗口。具体而言，《探索》一书的“探索性”特征至少体现在以下三个方面：

4.1 彰显言语先导的综合进化观

人类具有产出、传递、感知复杂言语的独特能力，这似乎是不争的事实。然而，人类言语与动物发出的叫声是否具有某些共性，人类言语的特殊性又表现在哪些方面？这个问题一直为利伯曼所关注。鉴于此，我们首先需要了解人类语言的“原始特征”(primitive features)与“衍生特征”(derived features)，进而了解言语及语言演化的连续性、变异性等特征（见《探索》第二章）。然而，言语之于人类语言能力的作用一直没有受到足够的重视(Lieberman 2008)，而这恰恰是利伯曼语言研究的重要突破口。

在利伯曼看来，没有言语也就不会有人类语言，他甚至认为“人之所以为人是因为人能说话”(We are because we can talk⑤)(Lieberman 2008, 2018)。研究人类言语离不开对言语所涉的语音特征（如量子元音、共振峰频率模式等）、发音器官（如喉、舌等）、生理及神经机制（如喉部下降、调节性神经回路等）等典型特征的综合研究（见《探索》第三章），这同时为理解语言演化提供了一个重要的观测点。利伯曼指出，言语产出所涉的“神经能力可能一起赋予了人类以句法和认知能力”(Lieberman 2008:221)，了解这一点，就不难理解言语在利伯曼语言演化研究中的先导地位，这是理解语言演化的一个重要突破口。

⑤ 利伯曼此言是基于人类种群进化的角度，并非针对个体发育。

4.2 突出运动控制及重复之于语言的关键意义

语法是语言系统的重要组成部分，也是任何语言演化研究都无法回避的重要议题，因为语法是理解人类语言共性与变异的一项重要内容。似乎只有人类语言具有通过一套规则将有限的词汇合理地组合起来以表达无限的意义，并使其具有群体的通约性，而不同语言又表现出不同的语法特征。乔氏模式正是从普遍语法(UG)出发，试图揭示人类语言的内生机制，也就是 I-语言的生成机制。

然而，正如前文所述，利伯曼否定存在某种先天的普遍语法，并试图证明两点：

1. 语法行为与其他认知和运动行为存在关联；
2. 人类的语法行为在其他物种那里亦有所表现，只是我们的认识方式与其表现程度存在不同程度的差异而已。

利伯曼认为，调节运动控制的神经回路是了解句法调节所涉神经回路演化过程的一个起点(Lieberman 2008)。而对于句法机制，利伯曼否认递归是句法的核心特征，进而提出以“重复”(reiteration)为核心的句法主张。更为关键的是，利伯曼将句法演化始祖追溯到与人类直立行走、跑步、跳舞等行为同样相关的神经机制，且在其他物种身上亦有所体现，只是程度有所不同而已（见《探索》第四、五章）。

利伯曼的“运动控制—重复”说一经提出即遭到猛烈抨击，尤其是难以为众多乔氏生物语言学研究者所接受，批评其有将复杂的句法行为简单化处理的倾向(Bickerton 1985; Mehler 1986; Jenkins 2004; Bub 2008)。利伯曼之所以坚持综合进化语言观，很大一部分原因是其主张并非基于猜测，而是综合了多种科学方法所取得的确切证据。

4.3 综合对比、模拟、自然实验等多种方法

语言演化研究史上曾发生过一个重要事件，1886年巴黎语言学会宣布禁止接收语言起源方面的文章，理由是当时此类文章多数流于空谈(乔姆斯基 2018)。可见，对于语言演化研究，直接（包括间接）证据的匮乏是一大“软肋”。然而，随着现代脑科学及神经科学的快速发展，新技术手段使得追溯、还原语言演化特征的证据成为可能。20世纪 90年代以来，PET、fMRI、EEG、MEG、TMS、NIRS等技术的应用使得语言与大脑方面的研究备受关注(Piattelli-Palmarini 2013:15-16)。

《探索》中大量的例证即源于多种方法的支持，包括不同物种之间和个体发育阶段之间的对比、计算机模拟技术对尼安德特人等早期人类化石的还原，甚至还包括对喜马拉雅登山者的自然实验等多种方法（见《探索》第四章）。综合这些方法所得到的数据，有力地支持了作者提出的一些主要观点。尽管作者旁征博引，利用大量证据，试图论证语言的生物学属性及其演化的连续性，但全文中大量的或然性表述可以折射出本书的探索性“定位”，而非给出了一种“定论”（见《探索》第八章）。

5. 利伯曼及其生物语言学研究路线图

最后有必要说明的是，本书作者菲利普·利伯曼是美国布朗大学荣休教授，曾在美国多所大学和研究机构任职，数十年来致力于言语、语言、认知与生物进化等方面的研究。他是言语研究领域“公认的权威”(Bickerton 1985:691)，也是最早从言语生理学角度探索语言演化的学者之一，这很大程度上得益于其跨学科的教育背景。利伯曼于 1966年在麻省理工学院(MIT)获得语言学博士学位，此前曾在该校取得电子工程专业的学士、硕士学位，具有深厚的工学基础，其博士论文《语调、感知和语言》(Intonation, Perception and Language)基于生理学、声学、句法学等方面的证据提出了一种关于“语调的语言地位”的理论(Lieberman 1966)，指导教师为生成音系学家莫里斯·哈勒。值得一提的是，乔姆斯基曾是利伯曼博士求学期间的授课教师，还是其博士论文答辩委员会的成员，而此后二者的学术主张逐渐出现重要分歧。不同于乔姆斯基内省式、演绎式的理论建构路径，利伯曼以言语为切入点，主要采取实验式、归纳式的理论发展路径，并持续发展出一种“达尔文生物语言学模式”。

回顾利伯曼的生物语言学研究之路，我们可以大致勾勒出一幅“言语—思维—语言—演化”的研究路线图：

1. 1968年，利伯曼在《美国声学学会杂志》(Journal of the Acoustical Society of America)发表题为“灵长目动物的发声特征与人类语言能力”(“Primate Vocalizations and Human Linguistic Ability”)的论文；
2. 1969年，与其同事在《科学》杂志合作发表题为“猕猴及其他非人类灵长目动物元音库的声道限制”(“Vocal Tract Limitations on the Vowel Repertoires of Rhesus Monkey and Other Nonhuman Primates”)的论文；
3. 1971年与 1972年，先后出版《言语声学与感知》(Speech Acoustics and Perception)、《灵长目动物的言语》(The Speech of Primates)，奠定其在语音及言语研究领域的重要地位；
4. 1975年，出版专著《论语言的起源：人类言语演化引论》(On the Origins of Language: An Introduction to the Evolution of Human Speech)，开启语言演化探索之路；
5. 1984年，出版《语言生物学与语言演化》(The Biology and Evolution of Language)，提出“一个连贯的语言演化框架”，详细描述“言语产出与言语感知的基因编程外周机制”(Beck 1985:551)；
6. 1991年、1998年、2000年，先后出版《独一无二的人类：言语、思维与无私行为的演化》(Uniquely Human: The Evolution of Speech, Thought and Selfless Behavior)、《夏娃曾说：人类语言与人类进化》(Eve Spoke: Human Language and Human Evolution)、《人类语言与我们的爬行动物型大脑：言语、句法和思维的皮层下基础》(Human Language and Our Reptilian Brain: The Subcortical Bases of Speech, Syntax, and Thought)三部语言演化相关专著；
7. 1985年，在《人类进化杂志》(Journal of Human Evolution)发表“论人类句法能力的进化：前适应基础—运动控制与言语”(“On the Evolution of Human Syntactic Ability: Its Pre-adaptive Bases—Motor Control and Speech”)；
8. 2015年，发表前文提及的“语言并非在 10万年前突现”一文；
9. 2006年，出版《探索》一书，将其语言演化论推向新高度；
10. 2021年 12月，《探索》中译版由商务印书馆出版发行，利伯曼应邀为中译版专门作序，呈现十余年来关于语言演化的新证据（如来自人类考古学石器工具制造技术、比较遗传学对 FOXP2基因的研究发现），进一步阐发对语言演化问题的新思考。

需要指出的是，目前国内对利伯曼著作的译介尚不多见，此次《探索》一书的出版，不仅是利伯曼语言演化观的一次集中呈现，也是对乔氏“主流”生物语言学模式的一种反观，对语言学、生物学、神经学、人类学、遗传学等多个领域研究都具有参考价值。

6. 结语

语言演化是一个十分复杂且颇具争议的基础性议题。其复杂性体现在所涉要素的多元一体性，即在多种要素的共同作用下使人类具有了如今复杂的语言能力和多样的语言形态；其争议性在于，研究视角不同，多种语言演化观交织共存；其基础性表现在，它是理解人类语言、思维乃至文化本质的根源性问题。深入理解语言发生和发展的历程，既有深刻的理论阐释意义，又不乏广泛的现实应用前景，如人工智能、神经计算等前沿领域。

近年来，关于语言演化的新论此起彼伏，譬如，克里斯蒂安森和沙特尔（Christiansen & Chater 2022）在《新科学家》(New Scientist)发表了题为“语言是如何演化的：一种新观点提示语言不过是一个游戏”(“How Language Evolved: A New Idea Suggests It’s All Just a Game”)的论文，提出了一种关于语言演化的“游戏论”：语言演化是一个语法化的渐进过程，文化在这一过程中发挥重要作用。而实际上，这一认识正是现代综合进化论的基本主张，也是《探索》一书的立论基础以及它带给我们的重要启示。

同时也可以看到，在继承和反思乔氏模式的基础上，生物语言学领域不断涌现开新性的研究理路和发现，蕴含相当大的研究潜势。可以预见，关于语言演化的讨论还将持续进行，语言演化不仅仅是一场思想实验，更需要大量的实证支持，对这一复杂问题的探究需要超越学科界限，形成一种超学科的研究模式，尽可能多地凝聚共识，形成研究合力，在质疑和探索中不断贴近语言背后的演变真相，以期揭示语言演化的底层逻辑和基本规律。

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收稿日期：2022-08-04
作者简介：杜 安，博士，讲师。研究方向：医学翻译、社会翻译学。
\hspace{4em} 李瑞林，教授，博导。研究方向：应用翻译学、知识翻译学。

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