Hegel nella caverna. Speculazioni sull'origine del linguaggio

An ancient problem for human thought is that of explaining the conditions that allowed the development of language, along with the related issue of understanding the essential characteristics that distinguish it from animal communication systems. A recent article of significant influence is Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch (2002), which proposed that the essential characteristic of human language is its generative capacity, the ability to express and understand meaning using basic elements (such as morphemes and words) to produce new sentences. The article by Hauser and colleagues provoked many reactions, including negative ones, one of which is that of Jackendoff and Pinker (Jackendoff Pinker, 2005). These authors identify the main characteristic of language not so much in its pure syntactic capacity but in its being more specifically a "discrete combinatorial system" (Pinker, 1994): in systems of this type, a finite number of discrete elements are chosen, combined, and permuted to create larger structures with properties distinct from those of their components. In contrast to Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch (2002), and also to Jackendoff Pinker (2005), Pinker and Jackendoff (2005), in this article, I propose that the essential trait of human language, from which all others descend is, instead, what I will call referential freedom, that is, the ability that allows humans to talk about anything, not only of things, actions and events belonging to the present of the act of communication but also of their past and their future, as well as of things belonging to other places and spatio-temporal realities. In fact, a language characterized by a discrete combinatorial system, or even by a combinatorial complexity generated by syntactic recursiveness, would be utterly useless if the communicative act were closely linked to the here and now of the present. Furthermore, I will examine the neuro-cognitive conditions that may have allowed humans to develop referential freedom and, more generally, representational detachment from the present.

人类思想领域的一个古老议题，便是阐释语言得以演化的前提条件，以及与之相关的核心问题：厘清人类语言区别于动物通讯系统的本质特征。近期一篇极具影响力的学术论文为豪泽、乔姆斯基与菲奇（Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch, 2002）的研究，该文提出人类语言的本质特征在于其生成能力（generative capacity）：即依托词素（morphemes）、词汇等基本单元，生成并理解全新语句的表意能力。豪泽及其团队的这篇论文引发了诸多学术回应，其中不乏批判之声，代表性的如杰克恩多夫与平克（Jackendoff & Pinker, 2005）的反驳。两位作者指出，语言的核心特征并非单纯的句法能力，而是更具体的「离散组合系统（discrete combinatorial system）」（Pinker, 1994）：此类系统通过选取、组合与置换有限数量的离散单元，构建出属性迥异于其组成部分的复杂结构。不同于豪泽、乔姆斯基与菲奇（2002）以及杰克恩多夫、平克（2005）的观点，本文提出：人类语言的所有衍生特征均源自其本质属性——即笔者所称的指称自由（referential freedom）：人类借此能力不仅可以谈论交际当下的事物、行为与事件，更能回溯过往、畅想未来，亦可讨论其他地域与时空语境下的存在。事实上，若一种语言的交际活动严格局限于当下的此时此地，那么即便具备离散组合系统，乃至由句法递归（syntactic recursiveness）产生的组合复杂性，也将毫无实用价值。此外，本文还将探讨人类得以演化出指称自由，乃至普遍具备脱离当下的表征能力（representational detachment from the present）的神经认知（neuro-cognitive）前提。