Giudice Alex Del
Department of Linguistics, University of California San Diego.
Lang Cogn. 2012 Nov;4(4):381-418. doi: 10.1515/langcog-2012-0020. Epub 2012 Nov 6.
Duality of Patterning, one of Hockett's (1960) proposed design features unique to human language, refers in part to the arrangements of a relatively small stock of distinguishable meaningless sounds which are combined to create a potentially infinite set of morphemes. Literature regarding the emergence of this design feature is less abundant than that exploring other levels of structure as focus is more often given to the emergence of syntax. In an effort to explore where combinatorial structure of meaningless elements arises the results of two pilot experiments are presented within which we observe human participants modifying a small lexicon of visual symbols through a process of iterated learning. As this lexicon evolves there is evidence that it becomes simpler and more learnable, more easily transmitted. I argue that these features are a consequence of spontaneous emergence of combinatorial, sub-lexical structure in the lexicon, that the pattern of emergence is more complex than the most widely espoused explanation suggests, and I propose ways in which future work can build on what we learn from these pilot experiments to confirm this hypothesis.
模式双重性是霍凯特（1960）提出的人类语言独有的设计特征之一，部分指的是相对少量可区分的无意义声音的排列，这些声音组合在一起可创造出潜在无限的语素集。关于这一设计特征出现的文献不如探索其他结构层次的文献丰富，因为人们更多地关注句法的出现。为了探究无意义元素的组合结构出现在何处，本文呈现了两个试点实验的结果，在实验中我们观察到人类参与者通过迭代学习过程修改一小部分视觉符号词汇表。随着这个词汇表的演变，有证据表明它变得更简单、更易于学习且更易于传播。我认为这些特征是词汇表中组合性、亚词汇结构自发出现的结果，出现模式比最广泛支持的解释所表明的更为复杂，并且我提出了未来研究可以如何基于我们从这些试点实验中学到的内容来证实这一假设的方法。
