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1、JohnHawkinshaslongbeenatrail-blazerintheattempttoreconciletheresultsofformalandfunctionallinguistics.EfficiencyandComplexityinGrammarschartsnewterritoryinthisdomain.Thebookarguespersuasivelythatasmallnumberofperformance-basedprinciplescombinetoaccountformanygr
2、am-maticalconstraintsproposedbyformallinguistsandalsoexplaintheoriginsofnumeroustypologicalgeneralizationsdiscoveredbyfunctionalists.FrederickJ.Newmeyer,UniversityofWashington.ThecentralclaiminHawkins’snewbookisthatgrammarfacilitateslanguageprocessing.Thisrat
3、hernaturalideaisbynomeansnovel:attemptstoexplainaspectsoflinguisticstructureonthebasisofprocessingconsiderationsgobackatleasttothe1950s.Butsuchattemptshavecharacteristicallybeenlittlemorethan“justsostories”–thatis,posthocaccountsofisolatedobservations.Whathas
4、beenlackinguntilnowisanythingthatcouldbecalledatheoryofhowconstraintsonthehumanprocessorshapegrammaticalstructure.Hawkinshasfilledthislacuna.Startingwiththreeverygeneralandintuitiveprinciplesaboutefficientprocessingoflanguage,hederivesaricharrayofpredictionsabo
5、utwhatkindsofgrammaticalstructuresshouldbepreferred.Hethenadducesawealthofevidencetodemonstratethathispredictionshold.Hisdataareofavarietyoftypes,includinggrammaticalpatternsinparticu-larlanguages,typologicaltendencies,usagestatisticsfromcorpora,historicalcha
6、nges,andpsycholinguisticfindings.Thephenomenahedealswitharesim-ilarlyvaried,includingwordorder,casemaking,filler-gapdependencies,islandconstraints,andanaphoricbinding.EfficiencyandComplexityinGrammarsisalandmarkwork,settinganewstandardinthestudyoftherelationship
7、betweenlinguisticcompetenceandperformance.TomWasow,StanfordUniversity.Hawkinsarguesthatgrammarsareprofoundlyaffectedbythewayhumansprocesslanguage.Hedevelopsasimplebuteleganttheoryofperformanceandgrammarbydrawingonconceptsanddatafromgenerativegrammar,lin-guist
8、ictypology,experimentalpsycholinguisticsandhistoricallinguistics.Insodoing,healsomakesalaudableattempttobridgetheschismbetweenthetworesearchtraditionsinlinguistics,theformalandthefunction
