The Boundaries of Babel | 理论与方法专栏

Andrea Moro 应用语言学研习

转自：理论语言学五道口站

2020年第14期

编者按：

《理论语言学五道口站》（2020年第14期，总第78期）理论与方法专栏为大家推荐意大利帕维亚高等研究院语言学教授、北京语言大学语言学系国际教授委员会成员Andrea Carlo Moro 2015年在The MIT Press出版的著作：The Boundaries of Babel - The Brain and the Enigma of Impossible Languages (Second Edition).

著作简介

The new edition of a pioneering book that examines research at the intersection of contemporary theoretical linguistics and the cognitive neurosciences. In The Boundaries of Babel, Andrea Moro describes an encounter between two cultures: contemporary theoretical linguistics and the cognitive neurosciences. As a leading theoretical linguist in the generative tradition and also a neuroscientist, Moro is uniquely equipped to tell this story.Moro examines what he calls the “hidden” revolution in contemporary science: the discovery that the number of possible grammars is not infinite and that their number is biologically limited. This will require us to rethink not just the fundamentals of linguistics and neurosciences but also our view of the human mind. Moro searches for neurobiological correlates of “the boundaries of Babel”—the constraints on the apparent chaotic variation in human languages—by using an original experimental design based on artificial languages exploiting neuroimaging techniques.This second edition includes a new chapter in which Moro extends the exploration of the boundaries of Babel in search of the source of order with which all human languages are endowed. Reflecting on the emerging methodology that obtains physiological data from awake brain surgery, Moro shifts from considering where the neurophysiological processes underlying linguistic competence take place-that is, where neurons are activated - to considering the neuronal code involved in these processes-that is, what neurons communicate to each other.

作为杰出的生成语言学家和神经科学家，Andrea Moro教授立足于当代理论语言学研究，推动了神经科学的发展。本书同时兼顾“理论语言学”知识和“神经科学”背景，属于“语言本质”和“神经科学”碰撞的又一力作。Moro教授在书中检验了之前提出的有关“当代科学隐形革命”的一些理论，检验发现语法并非无穷无尽，相反，其数量有限且由生物属性决定，此发现也引起了语言学界和神经科学界学者对人类大脑本质的热烈讨论。书中，Moro教授利用神经成像技术对人工语言进行了实验分析，实验数据来自于人脑清醒状态下的临床手术。Moro教授通过分析这些数据，探讨了神经元被激活的地点、神经元参与的生理过程以及何种神经元参与了这些过程等一系列问题，进一步对“神经生理过程”和“语言能力”发生场所的关系进行了探究。和上一版本不同的是，Moro教授在此书中增设了对人类语言起源问题的讨论。本书通过研究“神经生物学”和“语言多样化”等问题，集中探索了生物属性和人类语言多样性的关系。

Endorsements

名家导读

Andrea Moro has gained a unique position in formulating and implementing constructive approaches to these difficult and demanding tasks. He is able to address them with a deep understanding of modern linguistics, a field to which he has made major contributions of his own, and mastery of the relevant technology and its potential. This book is a lucid introduction to these exciting areas, superbly informed and imaginatively presented, with intriguing implications well beyond biolinguistics: for the cognitive sciences generally as well as for philosophy of language and mind.

—Noam Chomsky

任务虽复杂棘手，但Andrea Moro不论在制定计划还是具体实施上都有自己独到的见解。雄厚的语言学基础和神经科学背景，使得Moro能够在两个领域融会贯通。该书条理清晰、信息完备、想象丰富。对于生物语言学、认知科学、心理语言学等学科都具有借鉴作用。

—诺姆乔姆斯基

Andrea Moro masterfully describes the formidable challenges that linguistic structures pose to brain scientists. From Broca to Chomsky, from lesions to brain imaging, he authoritatively reviews 150 years of neurolinguistics and pedagogically guides readers through a carefully selected set of key experiments that shaped the field. A must-read for anyone interested in language and brain.

—Stanislas Dehaene

Professor, Collège de France, Paris; author of Reading in the Brain and Consciousness and the Brain

Andrea Moro通过对语言结构的研究，为脑科学界带来了巨大的革新。从布洛卡到乔姆斯基，从脑损伤研究再到大脑成像研究。Moro对过去150年间神经语言学中的核心实验进行了系统的回顾和总结，具有丰富的指导意义。任何人想了解语言与大脑，此书是必读之作。

—Stanislas Dehaene，法兰西公学院教授，《大脑、意识和大脑的阅读》的作者

作者简介

Andrea Carlo Moro is a professor of general linguistics at the Institute for Advanced Study IUSS Pavia, a founder and former director of NeTS and member of the International Professors' Committee of Department of Linguistics at BLCU. His main fields of research are syntax and neurolinguistics. Among his contributions are the discovery of inverse copular sentences, the principle of dynamic antisymmetry and the neurobiological correlation of "possible" vs. "impossible languages".

Andrea Carlo Moro，意大利帕维亚高等研究院语言学教授，NeTS的创始人和前任主任，北京语言大学语言学系国际教授委员会成员。Moro教授的主要研究领域是句法学和神经语言学。他的主要贡献包括：倒装判断句、动态反对称原则、“可能语言”与“不可能语言”神经生物学相关性。