✷清華語言所新第014次專題演講公告✷

講者：謝信一 (University of Hawaii)
題目：Can culture intrude on an I-language?
日期：2016年 5月 26日 (星期四)
時間：中午12時30分 開始
地點：人社院B305
摘要：
I-language is constrained by UG as Chomsky has maintained. Chomsky has at times thought about the possibility for some factors to influence or intrude on the I-language.
We argue in this paper that culture as one such factor can intrude on an I-language. We examine three types of structures to support our view. First, we reconsider Jim Tai’s idea of Principle of Temporal Sequence (PTS), by which Chinese yields (1a) 约翰买一本书給彼得, which translates into (1b) John bought Peter a book, with no support of the PTS. Second, we observe that Chinese has a preference for egocentric picture: (2a) 树上有一只鸟, which translates into (2b) There is a bird in the tree, which depicts an allocentric picture. Third, we notice that there is a prohibition in Chinese for moving an adverb modifying a verb to the object noun to function as its modifying adjective, as seen in (3a) 约翰买错了书, translating into (3b) John bought the wrong book, in which the wrong has moved from an adverb position into an adjective position.
If culture can affect an I-language, then Chomsky’s interface theory might as well also consider ‘presumptions’, which include pragmatics, world knowledge, and cultural cognition, in addition to just syntax, semantics, phonology, and phonetics.