Berent Iris, Dupuis Amanda, Brentari Diane
Department of Psychology, Northeastern University Boston, MA, USA.
Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago Chicago, IL, USA.
Front Psychol. 2014 Jun 10;5:560. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00560. eCollection 2014.
Productivity-the hallmark of linguistic competence-is typically attributed to algebraic rules that support broad generalizations. Past research on spoken language has documented such generalizations in both adults and infants. But whether algebraic rules form part of the linguistic competence of signers remains unknown. To address this question, here we gauge the generalization afforded by American Sign Language (ASL). As a case study, we examine reduplication (X→XX)-a rule that, inter alia, generates ASL nouns from verbs. If signers encode this rule, then they should freely extend it to novel syllables, including ones with features that are unattested in ASL. And since reduplicated disyllables are preferred in ASL, such a rule should favor novel reduplicated signs. Novel reduplicated signs should thus be preferred to nonreduplicative controls (in rating), and consequently, such stimuli should also be harder to classify as nonsigns (in the lexical decision task). The results of four experiments support this prediction. These findings suggest that the phonological knowledge of signers includes powerful algebraic rules. The convergence between these conclusions and previous evidence for phonological rules in spoken language suggests that the architecture of the phonological mind is partly amodal.
语言能力的标志——生成性，通常归因于支持广泛概括的代数规则。过去关于口语的研究已经记录了成人和婴儿中的此类概括。但是代数规则是否构成手语使用者语言能力的一部分仍然未知。为了解决这个问题，我们在此评估美国手语（ASL）的概括能力。作为一个案例研究，我们考察重叠（X→XX）——一条规则，尤其能从动词生成ASL名词。如果手语使用者对这条规则进行编码，那么他们应该会自由地将其扩展到新的音节，包括那些具有ASL中未出现特征的音节。而且由于重叠双音节词在ASL中更受青睐，这样一条规则应该会有利于新的重叠手语。因此，新的重叠手语在评分中应该比非重叠对照更受青睐，相应地，在词汇判断任务中，这类刺激也应该更难被归类为非手语。四个实验的结果支持了这一预测。这些发现表明手语使用者的音系知识包括强大的代数规则。这些结论与之前关于口语中语音规则的证据之间的趋同表明，音系思维的架构部分是无模态的。
