首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
It is hard to conceive of a language without nouns or verbs. But that is just what Riau Indonesian is, according to David Gil, a
It is hard to conceive of a language without nouns or verbs. But that is just what Riau Indonesian is, according to David Gil, a
admin
2010-07-19
51
问题
It is hard to conceive of a language without nouns or verbs. But that is just what Riau Indonesian is, according to David Gil, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary .Anthropology, in Leipzig. Dr. Gil has been studying Riau for the past 12 years. Initially, he says, he struggled with the language, despite being fluent in standard Indonesian. However, a breakthrough came when he realized that what he had been thinking of as different parts of speech were, in fact, grammatically the same. For example, the phrase "the chicken is eating" translates into colloquial Riau as "ayam makan". Literally, this is "chicken eat". But the same pair of words also have meanings as diverse as "the chicken is making somebody eat", or "somebody is eating where the chicken is". There are, he says, no modifiers that distinguish the tenses of verbs. Nor are there modifiers for nouns that distinguish the definite from the indefinite. Indeed, there are no features in Riau Indonesian that distinguish nouns from verbs. These categories, he says, are imposed because the languages that western linguists are familiar with have them.
This sort of observation flies in the face of conventional wisdom about what language is. Most linguists are influenced by the work of Noam Chomsky---in particular, his theory of "deep grammar". According to Dr. Chomsky, people are born with a sort of linguistic template in their brains. This is a set of rules that allows children to learn a language quickly, but also imposes constraints and structure on what is learnt. Evidence in support of this theory includes the tendency of children to make systematic mistakes which indicate a tendency to impose rules on what turn out to be grammatical exceptions (e. g. "I dided it" instead of "I did it"). There is also the ability of the children of migrant workers to invent new languages known as creoles out of the grammatically incoherent pidgin spoken by their parents. Exactly what the deep grammar consists of is still not clear, but a basic distinction between nouns and verbs would probably be one of its minimum requirements.
Dr. Gil contends, however, that there is a risk of unconscious bias leading to the conclusion that a particular sort of grammar exists in an unfamiliar language. That is because it is easier for linguists to dis cover extra features in foreign languages--for example tones that change the meaning of words, which are common in Indonesian but do not exist in European languages--than to realize that elements which are taken for granted in a linguist’s native language may be absent from another. Despite the best intentions, he says, there is a tendency to fit languages into a mould. And since most linguists are westerners, that mould is usually an Indo-European language from the West.
It needs not, however, be a modern language. Dr. Gil’s point about bias is well illustrated by the history of the study of the world’s most widely spoken tongue. Many of the people who developed modern linguistics had had an education in Latin and Greek. As a consequence, English was often described until well into the 20th century as having six different noun cases, because Latin has six. Only relatively recently did grammarians begin a debate over noun cases in English. Some now contend that it does not have noun cases at all, others that it has two while still others maintain that there are three or four cases.
The difficulty is compounded if a linguist is not fluent in the language he is studying. The process of linguistic fieldwork is a painstaking one, fraught with pitfalls. Its mainstay is the use of "informants" who tell linguists, in interviews and on paper, about their language. Unfortunately, these informants tend to be better-educated than their fellows, and are often fluent in more than one language.
______ cannot serve as evidence of Noam Chomsky’s theory of "deep grammar".
选项
A、He never forgaved her for teasing him.
B、She beganed to feel a sense of panic.
C、Sheeps were grazing on the hillside.
D、There are a desk and two chairs here.
答案
D
解析
推断题。由题干中的Noam Chomsky定位至第二段。该段第五句指出;支持乔姆斯基理论的证据包括孩子们倾向于犯规律性的错误,他们倾向于在一些例外的情况下还应用某些语法规则,例如将“I did it”误写为“I dided it”。可见这里是说将一般语法规则应用于特殊情况。[A]和[B]都是对过去时的错误应用, [C]是名词复数的错误应用,只有[D]不属于将某个一般语法规则应用于例外情况,故为答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/AulO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
WhichofthefollowingstatementsaboutintellectualpropertyisNOTtrue?Accordingtothepassage,studiesontheresultsof
Languagechangeis
AccordingtoLandes,somecountriesaresopoormainlybecauseIndiscussingLandes’swork,theauthor’stoneis
Specialwordsusedintechnicaldiscussion______.Inrecentyears,therehasbeenamarkedincreaseinthenumberoftechnical
TheReader’sDigestinvestigationaskedAmericanswhichwasthebiggestthreattothenation’sfuture--bigbusiness,biglaboro
TheReader’sDigestinvestigationaskedAmericanswhichwasthebiggestthreattothenation’sfuture--bigbusiness,biglaboro
Anumberoffactorsrelatedtothevoicerevealthepersonalityofthespeaker.Thefirstisthebroadareaofcommunication,
Anumberoffactorsrelatedtothevoicerevealthepersonalityofthespeaker.Thefirstisthebroadareaofcommunication,
随机试题
西方国家强势政府时期,政府经济职能大大增强,其主要表现是()
A.厌氧菌肺炎B.肺炎球菌肺炎C.肺炎杆菌肺炎D.军团菌肺炎E.支原体肺炎老年患者,发热、腹泻、意识障碍见于
按焊渣性质可将焊条分为()焊条。
2016年,某市总供水量199342.27万立方米,同比增加300.61万立方米,其中境外引水量149613.15万立方米,同比减少14819.83万立方米。在全市供水量中,地表水源供水量187628.67万立方米,地下水源供水量592.00万立方米,其他
以下是反映我国人才资源现状的一些数据:在高层次人才方面。两院院士由刚建院的233人和96人,发展到2003年的688人和663人。在教育科技人才方面,2003年中国科技人员总数达320多万人,比1993年增长近。从我国专业技术人才队伍的学历来看,从1999
某登山旅游小组成员互相帮助,建立了深厚的友谊,后加入的李佳已经获得了其他成员的多次救助,但是她尚未救助过任何人,救助过李佳的人均曾被王玥救助过,赵欣救助过小组的所有成员,王玥救助过的人也曾被陈蕃救助过。根据以上陈述,可以得出哪项结论?
某工厂仓库有一名保管员,该仓库可存放n箱零件。该工厂生产车间有m名工人,只要仓库空闲,工人将生产好的整箱零件放入仓库,并由保管员登记入库数量:该工厂销售部有k名销售员,只要仓库库存数能满足客户要求,便可提货,并由保管员登记出库数量。规定工人和销售员不能同时
在DMA方式下CPU与总线的关系是( )。
TheUnitedStates【C1】______alargepartoftheNorthAmericancontinent.ItsneighborsareCanada【C2】______thenorth,【C3】______M
AnewtropicalstormhasformedintheCaribbean,matchinga72-year-oldrecordforthehighestnumberofAtlanticstormsinas
最新回复
(
0
)