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自本世纪50年代以来,语言研究的一个显著特点是,形式语言研究中取得的成果被直接用于自然语言的理论建设。由于不同的形式语言在复杂程度上是很不一样的,任何一个语言学家在提出一种自然语言理论以前,都必须对自然语言的复杂程度作出判断。本文主要回顾了最近几十年来不同的语言学家在提出自己的理论时在该问题上所持的立场,认为这些立场都是可接受的,可以并存。 本文作者在补写这个提要时想着重说明的是,把自然语言的复杂程度定位在某种类别的形式语言,在语言理论的建设方面也有可能是搞错了方向。这主要是因为,跟形式语言的符串相比,自然语言的句子结构要丰富得多,也复杂得多。
A notable feature of language studies since the 1950s is that the results achieved in formal language studies are directly applied to the theoretical construction of natural language. Because different forms of languages are very different in complexity, any linguist must make judgments on the complexity of natural languages before proposing a natural language theory. This paper mainly reviews the positions held by different linguists in recent decades on this issue and holds that these positions are both acceptable and can coexist. The author of this essay, when supplementing this synopsis, emphasizes that positioning the complexity of natural language in some kind of formal language may also make the wrong direction in the construction of linguistic theory. This is mainly because, compared with the formal language strings, the natural language sentence structure is much richer and more complex.