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1、ConnectionScienceVol.17,No.34,SeptemberDecember2005,191211TheemergenceoflinguisticformintimeBRIANMACWHINNEY*CarnegieMellonUniversity,Pittsburgh,PA,15213,USALinguisticformsareshapedbyforcesoperatingonvastlydifferenttimescales.Someoftheseforcesoperatedirectlyatthemomentofspeaking,whereasothe
2、rsaccumulateovertimeinpersonalandsocialmemory.Ourchallengeistounderstandhowforceswithverydifferenttimescalesmeshtogetherinthecurrentmomenttodeterminetheemergenceoflinguisticform.Keywords:Emergence;Wordlearning;Syntax;Phylogeny;Ontogeny;Resonance1.IntroductionWheredolinguisticformscomefrom?
3、Researchershaveproposedaccountsbasedonrules,conventions,constraints,statisticalregularities,discoursepatterns,languagecontact,neuro-logy,physicaldynamicsandgenes.Whatiscommontoalloftheseforcesisthattheymustallmaketheirfinalimpactatthemomentofspeaking.Someoftheseforcesoperatewithinanarrowtim
4、eframe.Forexample,whenwerunupaflightofstairs,therewillbeanimmediateimpactonvocalproductionleadingtolossofweaksyllablesandchangesinpitch.Thistypeofexertionhasaquickandimmediateeffectonprosodicandphoneticform.Otherprocesseshaveaslowertimefuse.Forexample,wemaynothavemadereferencetosomeconcept,
5、suchasapotheosisorligatureforyears.Yet,whenweneedtousethesewords,wecandredgethemupoutofourmemoriesandapplytheminthemoment.TheeffectsofAlzheimersdiseaseonlanguagecanworkacrossdecades,leadingeventuallytoaninabilitytoremembereventhemostcommonwords.Languagesthemselvesundergochangesatatrulyglac
6、ialpace.Forexample,theshiftinOldEnglishfromsubject-object-verb(SOV)tosubject-verb-object(SVO)wordordertookcenturiestocomplete.Thesevariousforcesconstitutedynamicalsystemsoperatingwithverydifferenttimeframesandhistories.Whatbindsallofthesesystemstogetheristhefactthattheymustallmeshinthecurr
7、entmoment.Onesimpleviewoftheprocessofmeshingisthatcuescombineinanadditivemanner(Massaro1987)andthatsystemsarepartiallydecomposable(Simon1969).However,psycholinguisticworkintheCompetitionModelframework(MacWhinneyinpress)hasshownthatsimplecuesummationappliesonly
