语言学人｜黄正德：语法是生成的 兴趣是养成的

语法是生成的，兴趣是养成的

   语言学人（第5期）

黄正德

    摘  要：本文是对著名语言学家黄正德教授的访谈。黄正德教授首先讲述了自己的求学历程及如何走上语言学研究的道路，然后通过浅显易懂的比喻介绍了生成语法的基本思想，尤其是“Nature”和“Nurture”之间的关系，以及语言环境对于语言习得的影响。黄教授还描述了乔姆斯基思想的哲学基础和不同学科之间所存在的内在关联。黄教授特别指出，无论学习什么学科，兴趣都是最重要的，并就中学语法教学的现状和方式提出了自己的见解。

    关键词：黄正德；生成语法学；自然和使然；哲学；语法教育；科学方法

【Interviewee】

黄正德，美国哈佛大学语言学系教授，北京语言大学讲座教授，香港中文大学（深圳）人文社科学院荣誉教授。1974年毕业于台湾师范大学取得文学学士、硕士学位，1982年于美国麻省理工学院（MIT）取得语言学博士学位。主要研究领域为认知科学、语言学和汉语语言学，特别是句法学（生成语法）、语义学、句法语义接口。出版著作《Between Syntax and Semantics》、《汉语语法学（The Syntax of Chinese）》等。

C.-T James Huang，Professor of Linguistics at Harvard University. In 1974, Huang graduated from Taiwan Normal University with a Bachelor's Degree and Master's Degree in Literature. In 1982, Huang received his doctorate in Linguistics at Massachusetts Institution of Technology (MIT). His research interest focuses on syntactic theory, syntax-semantics interface, and Chinese linguistics. Published Work: Chinese Generative Grammar, Between Syntax and Semantics, The Syntax of Chinese, etc.

【Interviewer】 

施今语，伦敦大学学院（UCL）发展变化与可塑性实验室研究助理，爱丁堡大学语言学硕士，伦敦大学学院心理与语言科学学士（采访时为高中期间） 

Jinyu Shi, Research Assistant at Developmental Change and Plasticity Lab (University College London), MSc in Linguistics at Unveristy of Edinburgh, BSc in Psychology and Language Sciences at University College London.

【Time】

07/28/2016 

【Place】

Beijing Language and Culture University

黄正德先生与施今语合影

【Contents】

1. My journey to linguistics

2. The philosophical foundation of generative grammar

3. Nature and Nurture

4. Underlying relationship between "unrelated" subjects

5. About grammar education

6. Interest is the best preparation

7. Advice for high school students

1. My Journey to Linguistics

Shi: Mr. Huang, I have read an essay about how you became a linguist. In the essay, you mentioned that you were interested in literature when you were young. Why didn't you study literature in college and choose linguistics instead?

Huang: In high school I was already interested in both language and literature, but I didn't know anything called linguistics at that time. All I learned about linguistics was just grammar，which helps one to learn English better. Meanwhile, I enjoyed reading and learning literature. Since understanding western literature requires strong English ability, my interest in literature led my interest to language naturally. In high school, I was a "literary youth"     that was fond of writing. At that time, young people wrote modern poems, which broke the traditional shackles after the vernacular movement, and prose, a new style of the Chinese poetry that does not follow the traditional regular foot. I even wrote many poems and published them in a school magazine.

During high school, I studied English beyond what the school had taught. Besides what was taught in school and in textbooks, I read reference books that helped me improve my English. I was particularly interested in figuring out the correspondence between spelling and pronunciation. Understanding the rules in pronunciation is important for high school students because some questions test our knowledge in this area on the college entrance examinations take place every year. Therefore, I read books with explanations about the rules and their exceptions in English grammar, which sometimes made me wonder why the rules were the way they were, not some other ways. For example, when a vowel is followed by a consonant and a silent e, the vowel will be a so-called“long vowel", which is pronounced exactly like the way we call the letter. For instance, lake has a long vowel a which pronounced /ei/, and "like" has ...

Shi: A long vowel i is pronounced like the letter 's name /ai/?

Huang: Yes, also the long e in delete. I wondered why and when the "e" need to be silent if it follows a consonant and why the vowel has to be pronounced "short” if it is followed by one or two consonants without the silent e. When I learned about the syllable structure by myself, I figured out what strongly affects the pronunciation now is Middle English (of 14th-16th century). In that historical stage, people used to pronounce the silent e, which made the word lake sound like /leika/. When the final e is not silent but pronounced (as in /leika/ for example), the consonant before the e becomes part of the second syllable. Therefore, every time you have one consonant with one vowel plus one consonant with an e, there will be two syllables: each syllable includes one consonant and one vowel, which is called an "open syllable". All the vowels in open syllables were pronounced long, and the long vowels underwent a change, known as the Great Vowel Shift, which made the vowel acquire the pronunciation by which we name them. The reasons are related with the history, with the cause for the vowel change, and with the theory of phonetics. In high school, some of the books that explained the grammatical rules didn't make them very clear or explain the reasons for the rules, so I figured out clearer ways to understand the reason of the rules.

Shi: So when did you really encounter with linguistics?

Huang: I went to Taiwan Normal University for collge, which has the best English department in Taiwan. During the first year, my teacher told me about linguistics. In linguistics, one can study not only English grammar, but also Chinese grammar and the grammar of any other languages. Most importantly, one does not memorize the rules, but rather figure out the reasons for the rules. With the same example, the vowel can be pronounced short although it is not followed by a consonant in some languages. There is no language, however, with the rule that an open syllable ending with a vowel must have the vowel pronounced short, and a closed syllable ending with a consonant must have the vowel pronounced long. In most cases, in high school, the teachers only required us to memorize all the grammatical rules without explaining the reasons. Yet I thought all the rules have their own reasons, so I focused on one question, "why?". Besides asking why the rule works in certain ways, I also wondered why, where, and how certain rules apply to some languages while they do not apply to others. The introduction of the subject "linguistics" gave me an idea: one can actually find out why by approaching the question in a scientific approach. Galileo, the father of modern science, was a great example for all other intellctuals of his time, for not taking things for granted. Scientists have intellectual curiosity about everything around them and always ask WHY things are the way they are. For example, when an apple drops, it always goes downward. Normal people might take it for granted, but Newton asked "why", and he went on to discover the foundation for the theory of gravity. You know a burning candle is hot, but do you know why? The person who knows the reason is a wiser person than the one that does not. Linguistics is a subject that can fulfill my inclination of wanting to know why. In high school, I was interested in reasoning; in college, I found out this subject allowed me to ask for reasons. That is how I became interested in linguistics. It is a long answer for a short question.

2. The Philosophical Foundation of Generative Grammar

Shi: Mr. Huang, I have tried to read some of your research articles, but I cannot understand them, because my knowledge has not reached such a level. However, I do know that your major research field is Generative Grammar, which assumes the idea that there is an initial language competence in the human brain. There are several billion human beings in the world; in what method can we know that they all have one common innate competence?

Huang: Traditionally, a way to find out the common properties of different languages is to study them and look for their commonalities. As you said, however, there are thousands of languages, so it is impossible for you to use this approach and study all the languages in the world. For instance, one could probably study 24 languages and find their commonalities. Although those commonalities found among 24 languages would likely appear in other languages, one cannot claim that those commonalities are the universal properties of all the languages. The traditional approach is looking at common observable facts, but Generative Grammar is different. First of all, we have to understand an aspect of the philosophical foundation of Generative Grammar, which is concerned with the question: how children can know so much about language within a few years, as adults know when they try to learn a new language, seems so complicated and difficult to master. Let me give you a simple example. Suppose you have a chemistry teacher with long hair, you can call her a "long-haired teacher" or a "chemistry teacher". If you want to put the two adjectives together before teacher, in what order can you say the phrase?

Shi: A long-haired chemistry teacher.

Huang: Yes, you have to say "long-haired chemistry teacher" and not "chemistry long-haired teacher". When we put these words in a phrase in another way, we can also say“teacher of chemistry with long hair". If we label "teacher" as number one, "chemistry" as number two, "long hair" as number three, you notice that one have to use the order of 321 or 123, but not 231. Any English speaker would agree with this statement. But did anybody actually teach them in high school? Did you ever make a mistake about this and someone corrected you? Could you state that we can't use the words in a certain order just because we never heard people say them in that order? Obviously no. Why? Because we produce new sentences all the time, without hearing them or saying them before. Yet, somehow we knew that not being able to say“chemistry long-haired teacher" is part of English grammar. Learning the "positive knowledge" that you can say long-haired chemistry teacher is not a problem because you infer from similar things others have said (e.g, a tall mathematics teacher, etc.). However, learning the "negative knowledge" that one cannot say chemistry long-haired teacher is difficult because we cannot assume some ways of saying things are bad just because we never hear them. In other words, one never seems to have a chance to learn this kind of negative knowledge since he or she is a child, but how do you explain why a child knows what is impossible? The answer is because you were born with a genetic structure that contains certain properties that prevent you from saying things which are not allowed. The structure enables you to say something that is right, while prevents you from saying something which is logically possible, but effectually does not exist. In a metaphorical way to explain it: if you have the genetic structure of a cow, it would allow you to grow four legs; at the same time the genetic structure would also prevent you from growing any more or any less than four legs. You are prevented from saying something ungrammatical like chemistry long-haired teacher because you were born with the genetic structure in your brain/mind that prevents you from saying those ungrammatical strings. From the generative grammar's point of view, this part of negative knowledge is "unlearnable". A child gets to know the knowledge he or she did not learn, because he was born with a structure that makes the knowledge“unlearnable".

Shi: So we just "know" the grammar?

Huang: Yes. This is the so-called Universal Grammar—referring to the part of our mind/brain structure that a child has at the time of birth. It comes from innate structure—the brain. Since all human beings have brains, the Universal Grammar shall be obeyed by all languages, which have the same grammatically building blocks. Is it true in Chinese? How do you say the phrase“long-haired chemistry teacher" in Chinese? You have to say "" (long-hair chemistry teacher), but not "" (chemistry long-hair teacher). The negative knowledge prevents you from saying 132,  "teacher long-haired chemistry", or 231, "chemistry long-haired teacher". It is the same in English and Chinese. Even if you never study Chinese language, you will know the negative knowledge. As a result, we can study just one or a small number of languages, and we make hypothesis about the general nature of human language. To study the general nature of human language is to study the nature of the human mind; to study the nature of the human mind is to study the nature of human brain; to study the nature of brain is to study the nature of human being. Hence the study of linguistics is a kind of biological science. The hypothesis is: a child is born with a genetic structure that includes Universal Grammar, which enables the child to become proficient in using a language. Universal Grammar does not refer to the generalization that someone arrives at after studying a large number of languages, but the innate born genetic structure in children's brains.

3. Nature and Nurture

Shi: I learnt that there are more than 6000 languages around the world, so if every child has the same Universal Grammar and everyone has the same innate competence, why are there so many variations in languages?

Huang: Every cow has the same genetic structure, how can all the cows look different? The cows may grow up in different environment, eat different food, and receive different kinds of training, so some cows are tall, some are short, and some are strong, some are weak. Not all the cows are the same, but all the cows have four legs. On account of different training methods, cows' legs may be longer or shorter, stronger or weaker. Therefore, claiming something comes from genetic origin doesn't mean that everybody has to look the same. Suppose we are borm with the language-related genetic structure, which we call Universal Grammar, waiting to be nourished and develop into different forms afterwards. An apple seed that falls on the ground in China soil will grow into an apple, but this apple will be different from the same seed that grows in Europe or America. Depending on different soil, different water, different fertilizers, different amounts of sunshine, and so on, the seed can grow into different apple trees. So what are these that make them different? These are called "experience". Every biological being is a combination of nature and nurture. What does nature mean? It is what you were born with. What is nurture? It is the development in experience. You were born with the genetic structure called Universal Grammar, but it needs to be nourished and grow up, just like an apple. If the genetic structure is nourished by people who speak Chinese, it will grow into Chinese grammar, and the Chinese grammar would allow one to speak Chinese. If this structure is nourished by people who speak English, the Universal Grammar would grow into English grammar, and allows one to master English. If the universal structure is nourished by Chinese and English, you will grow up to be able to speak both languages. So theoretically, if this structure is nourished by 6000 languages, the person could speak all of them, though it doesn't usually happen in reality. That is, Universal Grammar can grow into the grammar of anyone of the 6000 languages. It is the later experiences that make a difference.

Shi: If we really have the competence in our brains, how does it help us to acquire mother tongue and especially to learn new languages?

Huang: Let me give you an analogy to help you understand it more easily. Suppose you have the seed of gingko tree, and you plant this tree in a place that has a lot of water but not a lot of sunshine or fertilizer. The gingko tree is going to be with few leaves, because it is lacking in fertilizer and needs to reach the sun. It may have long roots on account of the water it receives. If you plant the same seed in another location, where has a lot of sunshine and nitrogen fertilizer but not so much water, this tree may grow a little shorter than the first one but has a lot of leaves, while the roots will be short. The third one grows in an environment with water, sunshine, and phosphoric fertilizer instead of nitrogen fertilizer. Without nitrogen fertilizer, the gingko tree does not have a lot of leaves, but bears lots of fruits. The last seed is nourished by a lot of sunshine, water, nitrogen fertilizer, and phosphoric fetilizer, so this gingko grows tall with a long roots, and has many leaves and fruits. As a result, we learned that different nutrients would bring different appearances to the trees. After these five trees have grown a bit older, the third one turns out to have only few leaves because it did not have nitrogen fertilizer. If we begin to give nitrogen fertilizer to this tree five years later, the short gingko tree starts to get nutrient. This tree may still grow more leaves, but the speed of its growth may be slower because it is already five-years old. Even though the fertilizer can still cause the gingko tree to grow more leaves, it would never be able to grow as many as those that received nutrients in the first place. On the other hand, the tree trunk is already askew, you cannot alter it. Although it can still grow on top of the trunk, you cannot change what already exists. Therefore you can let it develop in another way, like developing your Universal Grammar when you are learning another language, but you could not make what originally exists disappear, which is your mother tongue. Of course, if the tree is extremely lacking in some nutrients in the environment, it might face atrophy afterwards.

Shi: So atrophy happens because we do not use the function just like not giving nutrients to the trees.

Huang: Yes. Any biological being can grow at any time, but after a certain time it would form certain shape. At the same time, other certain functions for the same biological being may be given up. For instance, the first tree put all its effort in developing it roots, so it gave up the function of growing tall. After abandoning certain functions, the fiunction might totally disappear, so that the tree would never grow tall again. Meanwhile, some function might be abandoned temporarily, so it can recover, like doing physical therapy. Our muscles work in the same way. If you never use your left hand since you were three, it would atrophy. Therefore, the effort you pay in the atrophied hand in order to use it again is more than when you let it grow naturally. Some might say that you cannot learn a new language after you are thirteen or fourteen because every biological being has a 'critical period' for easy growth. It does not means, however, one cannot learn anything more after the critical period. What we see about language and about language first or second language acquisition can be naturally understood once we view language in biological terms.

Shi: If a person moves to a foreign country and stops speaking his mother language, is it possible that he would forget how to speak his mother language after a long time?

Huang: Yeah, this phenomenon can be called atrophy. If you have a tree and stop giving it nitrogen fertilizer one day, its leaves would wither. I think the analogy works for any plants and animals. However, it can grow again unless you removed it or it is totally dead. Human beings are the same. For humans, all behaviors are guided by the mental system in our brains, including language. Sometimes we travel to a new language environment and lack opportunities to communicate in our mother tongue. Our mother language would atrophy if we“shelve”it for a long time. The atrophic language, however, can be relearned and the process of relearning is much faster than studying a brand-new language because the original knowledge is still stored in our brains. Our languages are invisible organs, just like our minds.

4. Underlying Relationship between "Unrelated" Subjects

Shi: When we mention Generative Grammar, a person we must talk about is Noam Chomsky. I met him once in MIT and he signed on a picture that I drew for him. In my media literacy class, I learned many of his ideas as a political activist instead of a linguist. I was surprised with his ability to master so many fields and wonder about the internal relationships between the subjects.

Huang: I think the subjects are all connected through philosophy. It is philosophy that determines your view of different things. Noam's philosophy views language as a part of human brain. This view is kind of philosophy. From his point of view of Generative Grammar, language is part of the mind and mind is part of human being's birth. You learn to think in a way your mind works, but you are born with a mind. Because of this philosophy, he also used the human "brain" instead of "mind". Therefore, the philosophy of mind is necessary when one talks about the philosophy of human beings and human behavior. Noam's philosophy of psychology and language are related through his view of human mind. On the other hand, as a philosopher, Noam views political concepts as part of human nature.

Shi: I am especially confused with the relationship between politics and linguistics.

Huang: Noam's idea of linguistics is Generative Grammar, which is strongly related to the concept of human minds that connect it to politics. Part of the human political activity is  guided by human mind, like how humans are able to organize themselves. He can analyze political activities in a very structural way. Noam can think in an analytical way that other people may not. Noam, even as a non-natural scientist, is able to apply the spirit of intellectual curiosity in asking why the government says what they said. From Noam's questions and philosophy, you can see the deeper side of what the government is saying and what people are living through. At least for him, the government is not always right, because he can easily see the other side. It does not mean that he thinks the government should change, because he maybe knows that is how the government works. Therefore, although he crticizes the government, I don't think that he wants America to become a multi-system country. He comes from an intellectual point of view to criticize American policy because he is pointing out another side of political activities of human beings. Actually, he does not know whether America would set the policies in other ways; he just speaks his mind about what is right, and what is wrong according to human nature. However, what is right and what should be done are not the same, and it is hard to achieve both at the same time. Even if America did what is right, would the world be better today? It's hard to say because there are too many factors. It is possible that America did "the right thing" but the country diminished. Human history is a history of competition. For a country, it is great to have freedom for people to hold and point out different opinions. A society develops because of people like him; otherwise citizens

might not be able to know the other side of the story. I think his nature of seeing beyond what people take for granted is the key guiding line in studying linguistics, literature and criticizing the American political system.

5. About Grammar Education

Shi: Nowadays, Chinese schools stop teaching grammar to students, and students can only learn grammar in English classes at school.

Huang: In international schools?

Shi: Not only in international schools, but also in local schools, including elementary schools and middle schools. Do you think it is necessary for students to learn grammar?

Huang: The schools are oriented in a way for the students to learn to use the language in efficient ways, but not to learn the grammar or linguistics. For a first language, students do not need to learn the rules, not because Chinese does not have rules, but because students have so many opportunities to hear the language and they are born to be able to acquire the language by themselves. The students' need is to get more examples from their teachers, so that they can develop well together with their grammar. They already have Universal Grammar, which will grow as soon as the teachers give them fertilizer. The Universal Grammar in them will naturally develop. Therefore, we do not need to teach the students grammar of the first language, but teaching grammar helps second language learners because students do not have many chances to hear a lot of English or other languages. The learning process of grammar is helping them to get familiar with the new language faster. 

Learming linguistics, however, is a different thing. Even when you learn grammar in high school or study linguistics in the future, it does not make your Chinese better, but rather gives you more explicit knowledge of the rules of grammar. One can study linguistics even though you do not want to become a linguist like me, because one might want to gain the knowledge. For example, you may want to be a musician in the future, but you feel delightful when you understand how the sounds spread so you study physics to know that. Studying in physics does not help you to become a musician, but it gives you knowledge and helps you become an educated modern person. Learning about linguistics and human language in general allows us to know more than our daily necessities, and that makes us a modern human being. The knowledge does not neeessarily help you get a job or make more money, and some people still go to take courses in linguistics, literature appreciation, and drama after they retire. Why? That is because learning has already become a kind of enjoyment for our minds and our lives. Linguistics is one of those subects that can enrich one's life experience because you can learn that language is part of human brain, and understand yourselves and the phenomena better. Back to the question, why do I study linguistics? Everybody has a good reason, maybe it is just the intellectual curiosity to have more knowledge about oneself, just like wanting to know about chemistry without the desire to become a chemical engineer or scientist. Curiosity is a good enough reason for anybody beyond high school to want to know more. Of course, research in linguistics can be a good career option, but it does not have to be the only reason for studying linguistics. We all have desire to know about ourselves as human beings, and language is a good window into parts of ourselves.

6. Interest is the Best Preparation

Shi: If a high school student wants to major in linguistics, especially to learn Generative Grammar in the future, what do you think they can do now in order to prepare for college?

Huang: I do not think they need to get prepared particularly about linguistics, but knowing something about linguistics is good. Reading about linguistics and about science, like chemistry, mathematics, and physics is good for students. Most importantly, students need to learn the scientific method of thinking, to learn the spirit of looking at objects in a scientific way, to cultivate their curiosity about everything around them. Maybe through your observation, you find that researching about language regularties makes you excited, so you know you are interested in studying linguistics. If you do not enjoy those observations, there is no point to study in the subject. Not everybody is good at linguistics, just as not everybody is fond of physics or chemistry. Maybe you like to write poems, or to paint, and use the art you can create to entertain yourself and other people, or use the artistic creations to make others' lives better and softer. Scientific research can be harsh. It is logical thinking, and maybe it is not fun for some people. I think the most important thing in high school is to catch every possibility of learning things that you do not know, to expose yourself to arts, to music, to science, to humanities, to social science, to have an open mind of curiosity, and to let your mind travel to everywhere without limitations. Whatever you did, you can find something you feel particularly rewarding, a sense of achievement. In painting, the artist hopes people who see his painting to say "oh it is unique". 

In my own career, I think finding about language rules is a kind of exciting, because I can learn more about "why's" in language than other things. The result is I can get a good score when I go to take an English exam, because I know why. In high school I remember when I was a senior, I was a straight A student. Originally, I was not so good, but I progressed a lot and was the top student in my class. In an exam, I might get a score of 97 or 98, while the student in the second place only got 85 or 79. At that point, I felt a pleasure of being able to acquire certain knowledge with considerable efficiency by figuring out the whys. The teachers did not need to teach me anymore because I was studying by myself out of my own interest. Most of the time the reason you are interested in some subject is actually influenced by the fact that it can reward you with the joy of understanding it, and make you feel proud of yourself. Afterwards you will go further. Try your best in every area at first, and enjoy the reward it might bring to you. When you feel you are particularly rewarded in some areas, it shows that you are good at those areas. Of course, you need to grab every opportunity to develop yourself. I do not want to tell every high school student to study linguistics, but it does not hurt them if they learn the linguistic way of thinking, because it is the same way scientists think.

7. Advice for Young Students

Shi: As a linguist, what advices do you want to give to young students?Huang: Do all you can do, be all that you can be. When you find something that attracts you, try your best to do it. Do not let temporary frustration discourage you from making more efforts. You will always face difficulties, but you need to have hope and keep on working toward one goal or another. Do not give up, but focus on what you are good at. That is the advice I can give you.

本文来源：《国际汉语学报》2018年第9卷第1辑

感谢文章作者及采访人施今语授权发布！

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