[演講] Exploring linguistic competence through silence
Exploring linguistic competence through silence
日期：2026-09-29 10:00~12:00
主講人：李艷惠（中央研究院院士）
會議地點：人文館3樓第二會議室
摘要
The Chinese language is widely characterized as being highly context dependent
. Speakers frequently omit arguments (silent arguments) that remain easily
recoverable from the discourse. For example, when the predicate phrase is a
verb like ‘cook’ without an object such as zhǔ-le (煮了, 'cooked'), it can
still be used to convey that "someone has cooked something." In such instances
, pragmatic world knowledge and discourse salience facilitate seamless
communication despite the absence of overt lexical items. This phenomenon
might suggest a general principle of economy: that whenever a constituent is
understood, it may remain unsaid.
However, my research has shown that this claim is empirically inadequate.
Contextual clarity does not grant a speaker unlimited license for omission.
There are specific environments where constituents must be verbalized—
regardless of how redundant they may seem—and other cases where a null
element cannot be interpreted in a manner strongly favored by pragmatics or
world knowledge. This indicates that the "unsaid" is governed by a rigorous
set of underlying rules that constitute the linguistic competence of the
speaker. However, linguistic knowledge is largely implicit. Explicitly
defining these rules remains a formidable challenge. Speakers possess robust
intuitions regarding grammaticality and felicity but are seldom able to
articulate the underlying principles. Uncovering these mechanisms requires a
methodical investigation of logical possibilities and their consequences. In
this talk, I demonstrate how the formal linguistic framework provides a
roadmap for externalizing these intuitions. Through a diverse range of
examples involving null elements, I outline the procedural steps of this
methodology and show how to achieve an adequate, explicit description of the
mental grammar of Chinese.
https://www.ling.sinica.edu.tw/main/zh-tw?/sign/0929
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※ 編輯: CCY0927 (111.255.111.159 臺灣), 06/17/2026 14:57:28
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