【专题演讲】
讲题：Stability and variability in Chinese syntax
讲者：黄宣范 名誉教授（台湾大学语言学研究所）
时间：2016年4月19日(二)14:00-16:00
地点：中正大学文学院144国际会议厅
Abstract:
When we examine how narrators verbalize the scenes
in the Chinese Pear narratives, we are struck by
considerable inter speaker variation in their
verbalizations. In each of the scenes examined,
there is usually one or at most two favored
verbalizations, which are the preferred states of
the system for expressing objects, event, experiences
and relations, and they may be thought of as attractors
in the behavior space in terms of complexity theory
(Kauffman 1995; Beckner 2010). These attractors exert
a force on the Chinese grammatical system, and serve as
models for new instances of grammaticalization. The
attractor forms that exist currently are stabilized,
but there is almost always variability around the
stabilities.
Since the potential for language change lies in this
variability (Bybee 2001; Labov 2001; Croft 2000, 2010;
Pintzuk 2003; Ohala 2003), variability in the data is
not noise to be discarded but is part of the behavior
of the system, and to be expected around stability.
If we smooth away variability, we lose the very
information that may shed light on emergence of new
grammatical forms. And that is why it is important to
investigates in grammatical research not just the
stabilized patterns, but also the wide ranging, dynamic
and systematic variability within and across individuals.