(3) Certain specializations in peripheral anatomy and physiology account for some of the universal features of natural languages, but the description of these human peculiarities does not constitute an explanation for the phylogenetic development of language. During the evolutionary history of the species form function and behavior have interacted adaptively, but none of these aspects may be regarded as the ”cause” of the other. Today, mastery of language by an individual may be accomplished despite severe peripheral anomalies, indicating that cerebral function is now the determining factor for language behavior as we know it in contemporary man. This, however, does not necessarily reflect the evolutionary sequence of development events.某些在生理及神經的特化作用可以解釋一些自然語言的普遍特性。但是，對人類特性的描述並無法解釋語言種類發展史。在物種外型發展的過程中，功能與行為是互相影響及適應的。但是，兩者並沒有所謂的因果關係。現今，除了嚴重的神經異常外，人類對語言的熟練指出了大腦的功能才是目前在語言行為中具有決定性的因素，就如同身為當代人知道般。不過，這些並無法反映語言的發展過程。(4) The biological properties of the human form of cognition set strict limits to the range of possibilities for variations in natural languages. The forms and modes of categorization, the capacity for extracting similarities from physical stimulus configuration or from classes of deeper structural schemata, and the operating characteristics of the data-processing machinery of the brain (for example, time-limitations on the rate of input, resolution-power for the analysis of intertwined patterns such as nested dependencies, limits of storage capacities for data that must be processed simultaneously, etc.) are powerful factors that determine a peculiar type of form for language. Within the limits set, however, there are infinitely many variations possible. Thus the outer form of languages may vary with relatively great freedom, whereas the underlying type remains constant.人類外型的生物特性及認知嚴格限制了自然語言變異的可能性。對形式及模式的分類，從身體的刺激配置及多種的深層結構找相似性的能力，大腦資料處理裝置的操作特性 (像是，輸入速度的時間限制，對糾纏樣式的分析像是，一群依靠，的解決能力，對資料儲存空間的限制及資料必需同時處理等等)是決定特殊語言形式的有力因素。雖有限制，但是，語言還是有無限多的變益可能。所以語言的外部形式就有相對大的變化自由，然而基底種類是不變的。(5) The implication of (1) and (2) is that the existence of our cognitive processes entails a potential for language. It is a capacity for a communication system that must necessarily be of one specific type. This basic capacity develops ontogenetically in the course of physical maturation; however, certain environmental conditions also must be present to make it possible for language to unfold. Maturation brings cognitive processes to a state that we may call language-readiness. The organism now requires certain raw materials from which it can shape building blocks for his own language development. The situation is somewhat analogous to the relationship between nourishment and growth. The food that the growing individual takes in as architectural raw material must be chemically broken down and reconstituted before it may enter the synthesis that produces tissues and organs. The information on how the organs are to be structured does not come in the food but is latent in the individual’s own cellular components. The raw material for the individual’s language synthesis is the language synthesis is the language spoken by the adults surrounding the child. The presence of raw material seems to function like a releaser for the developmental language synthesizing process. The course of language-unfolding is quite strictly prescribed through the unique maturational path traversed by cognition, and thus we may say language-readiness is a state of latent language structure. The unfolding of language is a process of actualization in which latent structure is transformed into realized structure. The actualization of latent structure to realized structure is to give the underlying cognitively determined type a concrete form.*(1)跟(2)的言外之意就是我們認知過程的存在entail語言的可能性。那個溝通功能的能力必需是一種特殊的種類。基本的能力是隨著個體的成熟而發展的。但是某些環境條件必需存在，語言才會出現。個體的成熟讓認知過程進入了我們稱之為語言準備就緒的狀態。有機組織現在需要某些生的資料，從這些生的資料就可以型塑語言發展的建設街區。這個情況就好像是營養跟成長的關係一樣。成長中的個體攝取的食物，在建築的生資料進入產生組織跟器官的合成作用前，必需經過化學分解且重新組織。器官如何建構的資訊並不是來自於食物，而是來自於個體潛在的細胞組成的成份。供個體語言合成的生資料來自於大人們在小孩身邊說的語言。生資料似乎在語言發展過程中扮演了釋放者的角色。語言顯露的過程相當嚴格受限於成熟過程及認知交錯的。所以我們說語言準備就續是潛在語言結構的一個狀態。語言顯露的過程就是個體潛在的結構變成真的結構的實現過程。在這實現過程中就是去給基底認知的決定種類一個具體的型態。(6) The actualization process is not the same as “beginning to say things.” In fact, it may be independent from certain restraints that are attending upon the capacity for making given responses. Actualization may take place even if responses are peripherally blocked; in this case actualization is demonstrable only through signs of understanding language. In cases where the proper raw material for language synthesis cannot be made available to the growing child (as in the deaf) ,the latent structure fails to become actualized either temporarily or permanently.這個實現過程跟開始說東西是不同的。事實上，它也許是獨立於某些約束措施之外，那些約束措施照料產生特定回應的能力。實現也會發生即使回應受到外圍封阻，在上述之案例，實現可以藉由可理解的語言符號展現的。如果說小孩無法得到供語言合成的生資料（好比說是聾子），那麼潛浮結構就會短暫地或永久地無法實現了。(7) The maturation of cognitive processes comes about through progressive differentiation.Physiological (and, therefore, cognitive) functions assume characteristics and specificities much the way cells and tissues do during ontogeny. Organs do not suddenly begin to function out of a state of silence, but every function in the mature individual is a derivative of embryologically earlier types of function. Although the primitive functions may often be different from the mature ones, we cannot say just when a later or derived process had its beginning. If language is an aspect of a fundamental, biologically determined process, it is not scientifically profitable to look for a cause of language development in the growing child just as we do not look for a cause for the development of his ears. It might be more fruitful to think of maturation, including growth and the development of behavior such as language, as the traversing of highly unstable states; the disequilibrium of one leads to rearrangements that bring about new disequilibria, producing further rearrangements, and so on until relative stability, known as maturity, is reached. Language-readiness is an example of such a state of disequilibrium during which the mind creates a place into which the building blocks of language may fit.
(7) 認知過程的成熟是由漸近的變異中發生的。生理的（且，所以，認知的）功能取得特色及具體性的方式就如同個體發生中細胞及組織作的一樣。器官不會突然從無聲狀態開始作用，但成熟個體的每個功能是胚胎學上功能的早期型態引出物。雖然原始的功能也許會跟成熟的不同，我們不能僅是說較晚的或是衍生的過程有它的開始。假若語言是根本的生物學地決定過程，去看成長中小孩語言發展的成因沒有科學上地好處，就如同我們不會去找尋他耳朵發展的成因一般。去想想成熟，包含生長及行為的發展就像語言，語言是由高度不穩定的狀態交叉形成；不均衡然後重置，重置之後的不均衡在重置，反複作用後到達相對的穩定，就是我們所知的成熟。語言準備就緒是一種不均衡狀態的例子；在不均衡期間，腦袋會創造空間讓語言的建築材料填入。(8) The disequilibrium state called language-readiness is of limited duration. It begins around two and declines with cerebral maturation in the early teens. At this time, apparently a steady state is reached, and cognitive processes are firmly structured, the capacity for primary language synthesis is lost, and cerebral reorganization of functions is no longer possible.
(8) 稱作語言準備就緒的不穩定狀態是有時間限制的。它大約從兩歲開始到隨著大腦成熟逐漸衰退到早青春期。在此時，顯然地已經達到了穩定的狀態，而且認知過程堅固地建造好了，主要合成語言的能力已喪失，且大腦功能的改組已不再可能。 (9) The language potential and the latent structure may be assumed to be replicated in every healthy human being because they are consequence of human-specific cognitive processes and a human-specific course of maturation. In other words, universal grammar is of a unique type, common to all men, and it is entirely the by-product of peculiar modes of cognition based upon the biological constitution of individual. This notion of replication, which is a cornerstone of the present theory, also leads us to assume that the actualization process from latent to realized structure is universal because of replicated sequences of similar states of disequilibrium, and there is evidence for this assumption in the regularity of language-acquisition strategies discussed in Chapters Four and Seven.
(9) 語言的可能性及潛在結構也許在每個健康的人上是可以複製的，因為他們是人類特有的認知過成及人類特有的成熟過程的結果。為當今理論基石的複製的概念也讓我們知道從潛在結構到實際結構的實現是普遍的，因為相似的不均衡狀態的複制次序。而且還有其它關於這個假設的證據就是在第四及第五章討論的語言習得策略的一制性。 (10) Because latent structure is replicated in every child and because all languages must have an inner form of identical type (although an infinity of variations is possible) , every child may learn any language with equal ease. The realized structure or outer form of the language that surrounds the growing child serves as mold upon which the form of child’s own realized structure is modeled. The maneuver is possible only because all languages are so constructed as to conform to the stringent requirements imposed upon them by cerebral language-data processing mechanisms. Insistence upon universal, underlying identity of type in all languages may be difficult to understand in the face of difference in rules of syntax and divergences. This puzzle is solved by considering the remarkable freedom allowed individual speakers to make creative and novel use of word-meanings, to reclassify words into various syntactic categories, and to take creative freedoms with rules of syntax. All aspects of outer form or realized structure are in a state of fluidity (of relatively high viscosity）indicating that it is our ”mode of calculating with categories” that is universal, but the categories themselves are not fixed nor the particular choice of the many possible operations.
(10) 因為潛在結構在每個小孩都複製了且所有語言必需有相同種類的內在形式（僅管可能有無限的變異），每個小孩都可以一樣簡單地習得語言。在成長中小孩身邊的語言的實際結構或是外在形式可以作為形塑小孩自身習際結構的模子。只有當語言是按照大腦資料處理機制的迫切要求去建構的，這個策略才有可能。對所有語言型態的普遍及潛在特性，若從句法規則的不同及語義的分岐去看的話可能會很難理解。考慮人類可以大量自由地使用創造性及新奇的字義而且也可以對句法類別重新分類，更可以創造性地使用句法規則解決了疑惑。外在形式及實際結構的所有方面是在一個流動的狀態（有相對的高黏性）指出了就是我們的普遍計算種類的模式而不是種類本身是固定的，也不是許多可能操作中的特定一個。
(11) The raw material from which the individual synthesizes building blocks for his own language development cannot be the cause of the developing structure as evidenced by the autochthonous beginnings in the infant’s language acquisition. Primitive stages of language are simply too different from adult language to be regarded as a direct mirroring of the input. Nor is there any evidence that the adults surrounding the child are the causative or shaping agents that determine language onset or his course of development (see discussion of need as explanation in Chapter Four and of language teaching in Chapter Seven). Purposiveness cannot, logically, be the mainspring for language development.
(11) 個人為了他本身的語言發展從生資料中合成建築塊並不能被當成發展中結構的原因，由嬰兒的語言習得中土生土長的開端可以得證。語言的早期階段跟成人語言是很不相同的，這被視為是輸入的直接反映。沒有任何證據可以說明在小孩身邊的成人扮演決定語言的開始或發展過程之成因或是塑造的角色（見第四章對需要的討論及第七章對語言教學的討論）。目的性在邏輯上不能當成語言發展的主要動力。
* This formulation might be regarded as the biological counterpart to what grammarians have for centuries called universal and particular grammar. Latent structure is responsible for the general type of all features of universal grammar; realized structure is responsible both for the peculiarities of any given statement as well as those aspects that are unique to the grammar of a given natural language.
vocabulary
peculiarity 特性, 特質
phylogenetic 動植物種類史的
schemata 輪廓, 概要, 略圖
ontogeny 個體發生
embryology 胚胎學
autochthonous 土著的, 土生土長的
