人物专栏|莱昂斯论乔姆斯基和生成语法理论——纪念莱昂斯教授
编者按
剑桥大学著名语言学家约翰·莱昂斯教授于当地时间3月12日辞世，享年87岁。莱昂斯教授曾著有《诺姆·乔姆斯基》专书，对乔姆斯基的学术思想进行了评介，是关于乔姆斯基教授传记性作品中具有影响力的文献之一。《理论语言学五道口站》（2020年第4期，总第69期）特发专栏，向读者们介绍此传记作品，以纪念莱昂斯教授为语言学事业所做出的重要贡献。
人物简介
John Lyons (1932-2020) , British linguist, received his Ph.D from the University of Cambridge. He was the founder editor of the Journal of Linguistics. John Lyons was a member of the British Academy and a recipient of honorary degrees both inside and outside the UK. From 1964 to 1984, he was a professor of linguistics at the universities of Edinburgh and Sussex. In 1987, he was knighted for "services to the study of linguistics". He was a master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge for 15 years, before retiring in 2000; he was an honorary fellow at the college.
约翰·莱昂斯教授（1932-2020），英国著名语言学家，于剑桥大学获得博士学位，曾创办了《语言学杂志》。约翰·莱昂斯是英国科学院院士，并在英国国内外获得多个荣誉学位。1964年到1984年期间，他曾分别在爱丁堡大学和萨塞克斯大学担任语言学教授。1987年，他因对语言学研究做出的贡献而受封为爵士。2000年退休前，曾担任剑桥大学三一学院院长，长达15年之久。他还被该学院授予荣誉院士。
Selected works：
Structural Semantics (1964)
Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics (1968)
Chomsky (Fontana Modern Masters, 1970)
New Horizons in Linguistics (1970) (as editor)
Semantics, Volumes 1 and 2 (1977)
Language and Linguistics (1981)
Language, Meaning and Context (1981)
New Horizons in Linguistics 2 (1987) (as co-editor)
Natural Language and Universal Grammar (1991)
Linguistic Semantics: An introduction (1995)
约翰·莱昂斯 &《诺姆·乔姆斯基》
《诺姆·乔姆斯基》英汉对照版于1996年在商务印书馆出版，杨光慈译。在本书中，约翰·莱昂斯向我们介绍了乔姆斯基的学术见解和成就，同时把后乔姆斯基的诸多理论概括在内，观点鲜明，论述严谨，是我们了解乔姆斯基及后乔姆斯基理论的必读佳作。全书共十个章节，主要内容包括：现代语言学的目的及态度、“布卢姆菲尔德学派”、语言理论的目标、生成语法模式、短语结构语法、转换语法和后乔姆斯基语言学发展近况等。以下内容节选自该书。
"Chomsky's position not only is unique within linguistics at the present time, but is probably unprecedented in the whole history of the subject. His first book, publishing in 1957, short and relatively nontechnical though it was, revolutionized the scientific study of language; and now, at the age of forty-two, he speaks with unrivaled authority on all aspects of grammatical theory. This is not to say, of course, that all linguists, or even the majority of them, have accepted the theory of transformational grammar that Chomsky put forward some thirteen years ago in Syntactic Structures. They have not. There are at least as many recognizably different 'schools' of linguistics throughout the world as there were before the 'Chomskyan revolution.' But the 'transformationalist,' or 'Chomskyan,' school is not just one among many. Right or wrong, Chomsky's theory of grammar is undoubtedly the most dynamic and influential, and no linguist who wishes to keep abreast of current developments in his subject can afford to ignore Chomsky’s theoretical pronouncements. Every other 'school' of linguistics at the present time tends to define its position in relation to Chomsky’s views on particular issues."
“目前，乔姆斯基的见解不仅在语言学上是独一无二的，在整个语言学历史上或许也是没有先例的。他于1957年发表的第一部著作，尽管篇幅不长，而且，相对来说，专门性也不强，但它却对语言的科学研究进行了革命。从那时到现在已有很多年了。在这些年中，乔姆斯基一直以无与伦比的权威谈论语法理论的一切方面。当然，这并不是说，所有的语言学家、或者其中的大多数人，都已经接受乔姆斯基大约十三年前在《句法结构》一书中提出的转换语法理论。他们并没有都接受这种理论。目前，在全世界范围内，有明显区别的语言学‘学派’与‘乔姆斯基革命’以前相比，其数量至少一样的多。但是，‘转换’学派，或者说‘乔姆斯基’学派不仅仅是众多学派中的一派。乔姆斯基的语法理论，对也罢，错也罢，无疑是最富有活力、影响最为深远。凡是希望紧跟当前语言学发展形势的一切语言学家都不能置乔姆斯基的理论主张于不顾。目前的趋势是，任何一个语言学‘学派’在具体问题上，往往都要对照乔姆斯基的观点来表明自己的立场。”
"The second general property of human language to be mentioned here is its creativity (or 'open-endedness'). By this is meant the capacity that all native speakers of a language have to produce and understand an indefinitely large number of sentences that they have never heard before and that indeed never have been uttered before by anyone. The native speaker's 'creative' command of his language, it should be noted, is normal circumstances unconscious and unreflecting. He is generally unaware of applying any grammatical rules or systematic principles of formation when he constructs either new sentences or sentences he has previously encountered. And yet the sentences that he utters wil generaly be accepted by other native speakers of the language as correct and will be understood by them. As far as we know, this creative command of language is unique to human beings: it is species-specific. Systems of communication employed by species other than man are not 'open-ended' in the same way."
“这里要提到的人类语言的第二个普遍特征是它的创造性（或者是‘终端开放性’）。这里所说的创造性指的是，所有操本种本族语的人所具有的那种能够产生并理解该语言中无限多的他们从未听过的，而且实际上可能从未有人说过的句子的能力。应该指出的是，人们对其本族语‘创造性’的运用在正常情况下是无意识的、不假思索的。一般来说，不管在造新句或重复以前碰到过的句子的时候，他们并不意识到自己是在应用什么语法规则或遣词造句的系统的原则。但是，其他操同一本族语的人一般都会认为他们说的句子是正确的而加以接受，并且能够理解。就我们所知，创造性地运用语言为人类所独有，这是物种的特性。除了人类以外，其他物种使用的交际体系都不具备这种意义的‘终端开放性’。”
"But What exactly is meant by the word 'generate' in this context?"
"But 'generative' for Chomsky has a second and equally important, if not more important, sense. This second sense, in which generative may be glossed as 'explicit,' implies that the rules of the grammar and the conditions under which they operate must be precisely specified. We can perhaps best illustrate what is meant by 'generative' in this sense by means of a simple mathematical analogy (and Chomsky's use of the term 'generate' does in fact derive from mathematical usage). Consider the following algebraic expression, or function: 2x+3y-z. Given that the variables x, y, and z can each take as its value one of the integers, the expression will generate (in terms of the usual arithmetical operations) an infinite set of resultant values. For example, with x=3, y=2, and z=5, the result is 7; with x=1, y=3, and z=21, the result is -10; and so on. We can see therefore that 1, -10, etc., are in the set of values generated by the function in question. If someone else applies the rules of arithmetic and obtains a different result, we say that he has made a mistake. We do not say that the rules are indeterminate should be applied. Chomsky's conception of the rules of grammar is similar. They should be as precisely specified--formalized is the techinical term--as the rule of arithmetic are."
“在这个上下文中‘生成’这个词的确切意思到底是什么呢？”
“‘生成’这个术语对于乔姆斯基而言，还有第二层意思，这层含义即使不是最重要的，起码也具有同样重要的意义。在第二种意思里‘生成’可以解释为‘明确性’，其含义是一切语法规则及其操作条件都必须作出精确的规定。我用一个简单的数学类比（乔姆斯基所使用的‘生成’这个术语事实上就来自数学用语）或许能最好地说明‘生成’在这一层意义上指的是什么。请考虑下列代数式或函数：2x+3y-z。假定x，y，z，这些变量分别取一个整数值，这个式子可给出（用通常算数运用来说）一个结果值的无限集。例如，当x=3，y=2，z=5，结果为7；当x=1，y=3，z=21，结果为-10，如此等等。因此我们可以说，7，-10等等都在该函数所给的结果值的集之中。如果有人应用这些算术规则而得出不同的结果，我们说他算错了。在这里，我们并不是，规则是不明确的、游离不定的，在使用中处处遗留存疑问题。乔姆斯基语法规则的概念与此相似。语法规则应该跟算术规则一样可以准确无误地加以说明——这里用的专门术语是形式化。”
1
"Like Jakobson, Chomsky believes that there are certain phonological, syntactic, and semantic units that are universal, not in the sense that they are necessarily present in all languages, but in the somewhat different, and perhaps less usual, sense of the term 'universal,' that they can be difined independently of their occurence in any particular language and can be identified, when they do occur in particular languages, on the basis of their definition within the general theory."
“和雅可布逊一样，乔姆斯基认为，有些语音、句法、语义单位具有普遍性。这并不是说这些单位必定存在于一切语言之中。这里所用的‘普遍’这个词不用于一般的或者说不是通常的那种意思，这就是，这些单位，不管是否出现在某一特定的语言中，都能用普遍理论范围内的定义加以解释，而当它们果真出现在某一特定语言中时，又能识别出来。”
2
"Far more characteristic of Chomsky's thought, and more original, is his emphasis on what he refers to as formal universals; that is, the general principles that determine the form of the rules and the manner of their opertation in the grammars of particular languages. For example, the transformations that relate various sentences and constructions, Chomsky claims, 'are invariably structure-dependent in the sense that they apply to a string of words by virtue of the organization of these words into phrases.'"
“乔姆斯基的思想更加独特、更具独创性的一面是，他强调他称之为‘形式的普遍现象’，也就是在某些特定语言的语法中决定规则的形式及其操作方式的那些一般原则。比如，乔姆斯基声称，将各种句子和结构联系起来的转换，‘一律都是依存于结构的，因为他们是通过把词组组成短语而应用于语符列的。’”
3
"We now come to the philosophical consequences of Chomsky's notion of universal grammar. If all human languages are strikingly similar in structure, it is natural to ask why this should be so. It is equally natural, or so it might appear to an empiricist philosopher, to answer this question by appealing to such obviously relevant facts as the following: all human languages make reference to the properties and objects of the physical world, which, presumably, is perceived in essentially the same way by all physiologically and psychologically normal human beings; all languages, in whatever culture they might operate, are called upon to fulfill a similar range of functions (making statements, asking questions, issuing commands, etc.); all languages make use of the same physiological and psychological 'apparatus,' and the very way in which this operates may be held responsible for some of the formal properties of language. Now all these facts are, a I have said, relevant; and they may well have exerted an influence upon the structure of language. But many of the universal features of language, both substantive and formal, are not readily explained in this way. The only conceivable explanation, says Chomsky, in terms of our present knowledge at least, is that human beings are genetically endowed with a highly specific 'language faculty' and that it is this 'faculty' which determines such universal features as structure-dependency or the 'A-over-A' principle (to take the two examples mentioned earlier in this chapter). It is at this point that Chomsky makes contact with the rationalist tradition in philosophy."
“现在我们来谈一谈乔姆斯基普遍语法概念在哲学上的意义。如果一切人类语言在结构上有惊人相似之处，人们自然要问：为什么会如此相似？而回答时引用下列有关的明显事实同样也很自然，或者在一个经验主义哲学家看来可能很自然：一切人类语言都用来指物质世界的属性和物体，而我们可以假设一切生理和心理正常的人在本质上都是以同样的方式觉察到物质世界的属性和物体的；一切语言，不论在什么文化背景中工作，都用来完成类似的功能（进行叙述，提出问题，发布命令等）；一切语言都使用相同的生理和心理‘器官’；可能正是这种器官的操作方式形成了语言某些形式上的属性。正如我们所谈到的那样，这一切事实相互关联，对语言的结构都可能有影响。但语言许多普遍的特性，其中有实体普遍特性也有形式普遍特性，并不能都这样轻易地作出解释的。乔姆斯基说，至少就我们目前已有的知识而言，唯一可以想得出来的解释是，人类具有十分特殊的天赋的‘语言官能’：正是这种‘官能’决定了诸如结构上的依存性或是‘A套A’原则这类普遍特征（以本章前面提到的两个例子为例）。乔姆斯基就是在这一点上和哲学理性主义的传统联在一起了。”
（译文选自商务印书馆1996年英汉对照版《诺姆·乔姆斯基》，杨光慈译，为通达起见，个别字句有改动。）本文转载权归“理论语言学五道口站”所有，转载请联系本平台。
编辑：马晓彤 王竹叶 訾姝瑶
排版：王竹叶
审校：陈旭 王丽媛