George Yule《语言研究》第4版配套题库【课后练习＋章节题库＋模拟试题】

George Yule《语言研究》（第4版）课后练习答案详解 【完整内容点击文中链接获取】

第1章 语言的起源

Study questions

1. Why is it difficult to agree with Psammetichus that Phrygian must have been the original human language?

Key: Psammetichus left the infant to grow up among goats. This action caused the infant to imitate the sounds the goats were making. Psammetichus interpreted this sound as an actual word which was in reality just a “be”.

2. What is the basic idea behind the “bow-wow” theory of language origin?

Key: The basic idea behind the “bow-wow” theory is the natural sounds. Primitive words could have been imitations of natural sounds which men and women heard around them.

3. Why are interjections such as Ouch considered to be unlikely sources of human speech sounds?

Key: Interjections contain sounds that are not otherwise used in ordinary speech production. They are usually produced with sudden intakes of breath, which is the opposite of ordinary talk, produced on exhaled breath.

4. Where is the pharynx and how did it become an important part of human sound production?

Key: The pharynx is above the vocal cords (or voice box) which acts a resonator for sound produced via larynx.

5. Why do you think that young deaf children who become fluent in sign language would be cited in support of the innateness hypothesis?

Key: If all children, including born deaf can acquire language at about the same time they must be born with special capacity to do so. The conclusion is that it must be innate is to say genetically determined.

6. With which of the four “sources” would you associate this quotation?

Chewing, licking and sucking are extremely widespread mammalian activities, which, in terms of casual observation, have obvious similarities with speech.

Key: a) The divine source: Language came from Saravasti wife of Brahma.

b) The natural sound: language came from imitations of heard sounds.

c) The physical adaptation source: language came from physical aspects distinct from other creatures.

d) The genetic source: language came from innateness hypothesis. Babies are sign language users or gestural. Human are born with a special capacity for language.

内容来源	George Yule《语言研究》（第4版）配套题库

Tasks

A. What is the connection between the Heimlich maneuver and the development of human speech?

Key: The connection between the Heimlich maneuver and the development of human speech is that both movements try to push air out through the lungs. The former is a mechanical procedure to dislodge any obstruction in the air passage while the latter is a voluntary process of vocalization required for speech involving the vocal chords, the oral cavity, the tongue etc. for speech output.

B. What exactly happened at Babel and why is it used in explanations of language origins?

Key: The Bible says that: “... the whole earth was of one language and of one speech...” after the flood. Communication among men was good. Men could freely express their ideas, designs, plans and notions with one another... and invent ways to implement them.

The indication of scripture is that God has put man on a 6000 year time schedule. One reason is to let man learn that he is incapable of governing himself apart from the laws of God. Recent history shows how, with the language barrier less of a problem today than in centuries past, the communication between peoples, nations and cultures is “bringing the world back to the time when the whole earth was of one speech”.

C. What are the arguments for and against a teleological explanation of the origins of human language?

Key: We look at evidence that language is an innate ability of the human brain, an idea linked to Noam Chomsky. But many linguists and psychologists see language as one facet of cognition rather than as a separate ability. Since Chomsky and Gould have made a number of assertions that language (the communication system unique to human beings), could not have evolved through natural selection, and natural selection has long been the prevailing theory in evolutionary biology, the challenge presented by Pinker and Bloom was to develop a theory of language origin that was compatible with the mainstream theory of evolution, the theory of natural selection.

D. The idea that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” was first proposed by Ernst Haeckel in 1866 and is still frequently used in discussions of language origins. Can you find a simpler or less technical way to express this idea?

Key: Ontogeny is the course of development of an organism from fertilized egg to adult; phylogeny is the evolutionary history of a group of organisms. The phrase "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" means that as an embryo of an advanced organism grows, it will pass through stages that look very much like the adult phase of less-advanced organisms.

E. In his analysis of the beginnings of human language, William Foley comes to the conclusion that “language as we understand it was born about 200,000 years ago” (1997: 73). This is substantially earlier than the dates (between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago) that other scholars have proposed. What kinds of evidence and arguments are typically presented in order to choose a particular date “when language was born”?

Key: There is no consensus on the ultimate origin or age of the origin of language in the human species. Scholars wishing to study the origins of language must draw inferences from other kinds of evidence such as the fossil record or from archaeological evidence, from contemporary language diversity, from studies of language acquisition, and from comparisons between human language and systems of communication existing among other animals, particularly other primates. It is generally agreed that the origins of language are closely tied to the origins of modern human behavior, but there is little agreement about the implications and directionality of this connection.

F. What is the connection between the innateness hypotheses, as described in this chapter, and the idea of a Universal Grammar?

Key: Universal grammar is a topic that has been researched in linguistics since the mid-20th century. The basic, fundamental structure of all human languages is very similar, in spite of the obvious differences in vocabulary and sound. This basic structure is called Universal Grammar. The innateness hypothesis is the idea that this Universal Grammar is present in all healthy human minds as a result of biological inheritance (in other words, grammar is innate).

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