Problems in the Language Form and Function Debate and a Way Forward

作     者：John A.Hawkins 

作者机构：University of California Davis USA Cambridge University 

出 版 物：《Language and Semiotic Studies》 (语言与符号学研究（英文）)

年 卷 期：2015年第1卷第4期

页      面：19-33页

学科分类：0501[文学-中国语言文学] 0303[法学-社会学] 050102[文学-语言学及应用语言学] 03[法学] 030303[法学-人类学] 05[文学] 

主　　题：efficiency form-function correspondences functions of language head ordering hierarchies language processing Minimize Domains Minimize Forms PerformanceGrammar Correspondence Hypothesis 

摘      要：A much debated issue in linguistics involves the extent to which the forms of languages(phonemes,morphemes,words,phrases and syntactic structures)have been shaped by the functions that languages *** paper begins by defining what thesefunctionsare:the forms of language must express(*** capable of being paired with)an infinite set of meanings in a consistent way;these form-meaning pairings must be readily processable by language producers and comprehenders in real time;and they must be readily *** paper then focuses on the processability function,and enumerates some problems that complicate discussions of whether processing has actually played a role in shaping grammars,especially in morphology and *** of these problems,it is argued,are the result of unresolved issues in current theories regarding *** precise relationship between production and comprehension,the measurement of working memory load,and the relationship between prediction and the integration of preceding and following items in on-line processing.I argue here that the linguistic question of explaining why the world’s grammars are the way they are,and understanding the role of processing in explaining grammatical forms,need not,and cannot,wait for these big general issues to be resolved in ***,we can adopt a more empirical approach that compares patterns in grammatical forms and structures across languages with relevant empirical patterns in usage data within languages,from corpora and *** more empirical approach allows us to test whether there is,or is not,a match between grammatical data on the one hand,and usage data on the other,that are the products of the processing mechanisms that psycholinguistic theories are trying to def *** patterns can be described in theory-general or-neutral ways and they can shed light on whether grammatical forms have been shaped by performance,without us having to f ill in all the details of the