人物专栏 | Genoveva Puskás教授访谈录

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《理论语言学五道口站》（2021年第26期，总第160期）“人物专栏”与大家分享本站采编人员闫玉萌对Genoveva Puskás教授进行采访的访谈录。Genoveva Puskás，瑞士日内瓦大学语言学博士、副教授，北京语言大学语言学系国际教授委员会成员。她的主要研究领域是句法学、句法-语义接口和芬诺-乌戈尔语言。她的具体研究兴趣包括否定和量化的句法语义对比研究，匈牙利语中左缘现象的句法和语义研究，以及虚拟句的句法研究。

本期访谈中，Genoveva Puskás教授首先就语言使用熟练程度对语言研究的影响发表了自己的看法，然后对跨语言的句法制图研究、句法-语义接口研究的相关问题提出了自己的见解，最后对英语中所有格修饰语这一具体语言现象进行了阐释，带给我们许多启发。

人物简介

Genoveva Puskás 教授

Genoveva Puskás，日内瓦大学语言学博士，现为日内瓦大学英语语言学副教授，1998-1999学年为美国加利福尼亚大学圣克鲁兹分校访问研究员，2006-2007学年为加拿大麦吉尔大学（蒙特利尔）客座教授。她的主要研究领域是句法、句法-语义接口和芬兰-乌戈尔语言。更具体地说，她的研究包括否定和量化的句法语义对比研究，匈牙利语中左缘现象的句法和语义，如主题、焦点、wh问题和话题对比，以及虚拟句的句法。2001年至2005年，她主持瑞士国家基金会(SNF)重大项目“语言的量化和否定的相互作用”；2009年10月，她主持瑞士国家基金会(SNF)重大项目“虚拟语气的句法属性的跨语言研究”。

Brief Introduction

Genoveva Puskás holds a PhD in linguistics from the University of Geneva and her current position is an Associate Professor in English Linguistics. She was a Visiting Fellow Researcher at the University of California in Santa Cruz during the academic year 1998-1999 and a Visiting Professor at McGill University (Montréal) in 2006-2007. Her main research domains are syntax, the syntax-semantics interface and Finno-Ugric languages. More specifically, her research activities include the syntax and semantics of negation and quantification in a comparative approach, the syntax and semantics of left peripheral phenomena in Hungarian, such as Topic, Focus, wh-questions and Contrastive Topic, and more recently, the syntax of subjunctive clauses. Between 2001 and 2005, she was Principal Investigator of a Swiss National Foundation (SNF) project on the interaction between quantification and negation in various languages, including English, French, Bellinzonese, and Hungarian. As of October 2009, she is PI of a SNF funded project on a cross-linguistic approach to the syntactic properties of subjunctive. 

访谈内容

1.

闫玉萌：您进行了许多跨语言方面的研究，比如英语、法语、贝林佐纳语和匈牙利语。据您所知，一门语言使用的熟练程度是否会影响对这门语言进行的相关研究呢？

Genoveva Puskás教授：在你所说的研究中，所有的参与者都是某些语言的使用者：我们都能熟练使用英语和法语，匈牙利语是我的母语，而其中一个合作者讲意大利贝林佐纳方言。因此，熟练掌握一门语言可以使得研究更为简单，因为你可以直接做出自己的判断（当然也需要得到其他该语言使用者的确认），并且你会更有信心构建测试材料，如经由语言使用者评估的句子，或者检索数据。但是很多研究关注的语言并不是研究者可以熟练使用的语言。这样的研究有一个缺点，即你需要认真检查所有的数据，如果要研究一门不会使用的语言，那么作为语言初学者的研究者要接受相关的语言训练，而检查数据则要基于这些语言训练。特别是由于生成语法也关注不合语法和不可接受的句子，而语言初学者往往会放弃这些句子并采用其他替代方案，因此收集所需数据并不总是那么容易。另一方面的优点就是，因为你从一个中立的角度来看待这门语言，从而可以重新审视一些问题。显然最理想的情况是团队合作，即与熟练掌握目标语言的人合作。最近我开始研究纳瓦霍语情态系统的某些属性，纳瓦霍语是美国的一种本土语言，主要分布在美国南部，很幸运我能和Mary Willie合作，Mary Willie是一名语言学家，母语又是纳瓦霍语。这些都是最理想的情况。

2.

闫玉萌：蔡维天教授最近的文章中提到英语中dry sentences的形式和用法与汉语相同，但不可避免地是在共性上必然存在差异。您认为这种跨语言上的共性是否有利于句法制图研究？

Genoveva Puskás教授：生成语法最有趣的进步之处在于人们开始研究比较句法，确切地说是关于语言之间的不同之处，但更为基本的是语言之间的共性。句法制图从这一比较视角受益颇多，没有比较研究，Guglielmo Cinque与Luigi Rizzi的开创性工作也就无法存在。我再次猜测：虽然有充分的理由说明我们通过比较研究来解释语言的共性，语言之间的细微差别也不容忽视。我们也已经意识到一些差异，需要重新修改句法制图的某些细节。此时我想到了情态或体上面的域。虽然这些基本组成部分的制图区域已经很好地界定了，但语言间似乎有微小的变化违背了完全统一的语言结构描述。这听起来像是对于句法制图的挑战，实际上是“塞翁失马，焉知非福”，因为它将驱使研究人员进行更为细致的研究，以揭示这些微变化背后的基本原理。

3.

闫玉萌：句法-语义接口的研究成果涉及到句法构建原则与语义阐释原则的交互作用。基于您对于句法-语义接口方面的研究，您认为这一方面研究的最大挑战是什么？

Genoveva Puskás教授：我认为最大的挑战不在于语法结构与语义解释的映射，而在于对于此种映射的建模。句法研究已经开发出了一种非常有效的、基于特定机制（特征核查，移位等）的分析工具，能够对发挥作用的语言机制提供合理可行的解释。语义研究同样开发了一种有效的工具，能够描述和解释非常微妙的语义问题，至关重要的是不仅在词汇层面，而且在命题或句子层面同样也能发挥功能。我看到的主要问题在于这两种输出方式是如何彼此对应的。我们如何将其中一个“翻译”成另一个？我们的研究基于语言系统是高度模块化的这样一个假设，该系统以一种相对自治的方式对每个组件进行建模。但是，如果我们感兴趣于这两个系统之间的联系以及大脑对于它们的实际运作，那么仅仅通过比较研究这两个相去甚远的系统并力图证明两者存在某点相似性的逻辑似乎并不合乎常理。但我们既不想放弃句法模型也不想放弃语义模型。近期研究试图构建的模型是语义属性实际上编码于句法中。这就引出了一个有趣的问题，即一方能为另一方提供什么：是语义特征丰富了句法构建的原材料，还是句法结构提供了给语言单位赋语义值的方法？任何系统都必须同时考虑语言单位的微观构建（形态或次形态单位）及命题层面。我认为真正的挑战就在于此处。

4. 

闫玉萌：众所周知，乔姆斯基将语义、语音、语篇和语用因素分离开来，并在此基础上提出了“句法自治”。而人们实际使用的语言是由各个子系统相互作用而形成的，目前的研究也表明了界面研究的重要性。在您看来，接口研究将会在哪些课题中发挥更大的作用？

Genoveva Puskás教授：我很想尽量说得全面一些，我认为在所有方面都至关重要。正如我之前提到的，语言是一个整体，因此有关“接口”的研究至关重要。如果我们想要深入地理解极其复杂的语言现象，那么将其各个部分分离开来，从而对不同的方面进行针对性的研究是十分必要的。因此乔姆斯基早期对句法自治性的研究显然是确立句法在语言中核心地位的关键一步。与此同时，我们也越来越认识到不同组件之间的相互作用十分复杂。例如，语言学中有关语音-句法接口的研究还不够充分，这一点令人感到遗憾。最近的一些相关研究是在制图理论框架下进行的，但通常侧重于语调和话语成分，而声调在句法中的作用鲜为人知。声调语言（如汉语和许多非洲语言）在理解声调如何作用于句法信息方面可以发挥巨大作用。目前这确实是一个非同寻常的研究领域，并且它刚刚开始得到认可，还有待更加深入的探索。

5. 

闫玉萌：所有格修饰语并不是语言中的一种特殊现象，但在某些语言中（如匈牙利语），它们可以移到左缘结构的焦点位置（Ihane & Puskás，2001）。请问这种情况在英语中也同样存在吗？您能给我们举个例子来说明一下吗？

Genoveva Puskás教授：我不确定这个问题是与DP内部相关还是与句子层面相关。在匈牙利语中，所有格修饰语，如“John’s”或“my”，可以出现在限定短语中的两个位置：要么在与名词相关的低位（在nP内或其右侧，如possP中）；要么在更高的位置，Szabolcsi (1983)将其分析为DP边缘位置（即DP的Spec位置）。英语似乎只存在高位，所有者和所有物之间出现形容词修饰语可以证明这一点。在句子层面上，匈牙利所有格修饰语有一个有趣的特点，那就是可以从DP中移出，占据较高的左缘位置。这是有可能的，因为最近的研究将DP的Spec位置视为一个“逃生舱”（或因为，最近研究显示，它在DP中占据边缘位置）。关于这一研究，我可以提供一些相关的文献，如den Dikken （1999, 2015），den Dikken and Dékány （2018），E.-Kiss（2014）。虽然世界上很多语言都有这种外部所有格结构，但英语中却并不存在：英语似乎并没有这样的选项，因此不可能提取所有格修饰语。

参考文献

[1] Ihsane, Tabea & Genoveva Puskás. 2001. Specific is not Definite. Generative Grammar in Geneva 2: 39-54

[2] Dikken, M. den & Éva Dékány. 2018. A Restriction on Recursion. Syntax Vol. 21 (2018) 1, 37-71

[3] Szabolcsi, Anna. 1983. The possessor that ran away from home. The Linguistic Review 3: 89-102.

[4] É. Kiss K. 2014. Ways of Licensing external possessors: preliminary version of Ways of licensing Hungarian external possessors. Acta Linguistica Hungarica Vol. 61 (2014) 1, 45-68.

English Version

1.

Yumeng Yan: We noticed that you’ve finished many cross-linguistic researches such as projects on English, French, Bellinzonese, and Hungarian. According to your experience, do you think that the proficiency of using a language would play a role in studying that language?

Prof. Genoveva Puskás: In the projects you mention here, the participants were all speakers of these languages: we all have a good level of proficiency in English and French, I am a native speaker of Hungarian and one of our collaborators was a speaker of the Bellinzonese dialect of Italian. So it is true that having a native (or good) command of a language makes it easier to study it, because you can rely on your own judgements - which would anyhow need to be confirmed by other speakers - and because you are more confident in constructing the testing material, such as sentences to be evaluated by speakers, or in retrieving data. But a lot of research is done on languages that are not part of the linguistic competences of a researcher. It has a drawback, because you need to check carefully all the data, and you have to rely on informants you need to train in some way, because naïve speakers don’t always understand what you are looking for. Especially since generative grammar also works with ungrammaticality and unacceptable sentences, and naïve speakers tend to discard them and propose other alternatives, it is not always easy to collect the data you need. The advantage, on the other hand, is that you can have a fresh eye on some problems, because you look at the language from a neutral perspective. The ideal situation is obviously to work in teams, with someone who has a good knowledge of the target language. I recently started to investigate some properties of the modal system in Navajo, a ‘native American’ language spoken in the South of the United States, and I was lucky to be able to work with a wonderful person, Mary Willie, who is both a linguist and a native speaker of Navajo. These are really the ideal conditions.

2.

Yumeng Yan: Professor Wei-Tien Dylan Tsai mentioned in a recent paper that there are forms and usages of dry sentences in English which are similar to those in Chinese. Inevitably, however, there must be differences in commonality. In your opinion, will this cross-language commonality provide convenience or challenge for cartography research?

Prof. Genoveva Puskás: The most interesting advances in generative grammar were made when people started working in comparative syntax, that is, precisely discovering in what languages differed, but essentially what they had in common. Cartography has greatly benefitted from this comparative approach: without it, the ground-breaking work done by Guglielmo Cinque and Luigi Rizzi would simply not have been possible. I guess that again, while there are obvious good reasons to work comparatively to uncover commonalities, fine-grained distinctions between languages cannot be ignored. We are already aware of some variations which would require a reworking of some cartographic details. I am thinking here of the modal or aspectual domains. While the cartographic areas of these essential components have been well delimited, languages seem to present small variations which appear to go against a completely unified account of their structures. This might sound like a challenge for cartography, but actually, it might be a blessing in disguise, in that it will force researchers to work at even more fine-grained levels to uncover the rationale behind these micro-variations.

3. 

Yumeng Yan: The study of the syntax--semantics interface is concerned with linguistic phenomena that are the product of interactions between principles of syntactic organization and principles of semantic interpretation. Since you have done many researches on the syntax--semantics interface, could you tell us a big challenge you’ve met?

Prof. Genoveva Puskás: I think that the biggest challenge resides not in the mapping of syntactic organization and semantic interpretation, but in the modelling of such a mapping. Syntactic research has developed a very performant tool of analysis which relies on specific mechanisms (feature checking, movement, etc) able to provide a reasonably viable account of the linguistic mechanisms at play. Semantic research as developed an equally performant tool able to describe and to account for very subtle semantic questions, not only at the lexical level, but crucially, at the propositional/sentential level. The main problem I see is the alignment of these two outputs. How do we ‘translate’ one into the other? We work with the hypothesis of a highly modular linguistic system, in which each component can be modelled in a relatively autonomous way. But if we are interested in the connections between these systems, and in how the brain actually handles them, it is a bit unsatisfactory to simply work in parallel with two so different models, hoping that they meet at some point. But we do not want to give up either the syntactic model or the semantic one. Recent research has tried to construct models in which semantic properties are actually encoded in the syntax. This leads to the interesting question of what feeds what: do semantic properties furnish the material for syntactic structures, or do syntactic structures provide the means to assign semantic values to items? Any such system will have to take into account not only the micro-construction of linguistic units (morphemic or sub-morphemic units) but also the propositional level. This is where I think the real challenge lies.

4.

Yumeng Yan: As we all know, Chomsky separated semantic, phonological, textual and pragmatic factors, and established "autonomous syntax" on this basis. However, the language people actually use is formed by the interaction of various subsystems. Current research also shows the importance of interface research. What topics do you think interface research will play a greater role in the future?

Prof. Genoveva Puskás: I would be tempted to say ‘all’. As I mentioned it before, interfaces are crucial, because we know that language is a whole. The need for separation was/is real, in the sense that if we want to understand the extremely complex phenomenon of human language, we have to take it apart, and study each of its aspects. And Chomsky’s early approach to the autonomy of syntax was obviously a necessary step to establish the actual central role of syntax in our knowledge of language. But we also have become more and more aware of the complex interactions between the different components. For example, an unfortunately understudied areas in linguistic research is the phonology-syntax interface. Some recent work has been produced within the cartographic approach, but usually focusing on intonation and discourse component. A less well-known area is the role of tones in syntax. Tone languages, like Chinese, but also many African languages, have a lot to offer in terms of understanding how tone actually contributes to syntactic information. There is really an extraordinary field of research here that has just started to be acknowledged, with a few researchers at the cutting edge, and needs to be explored in more depth.

5.

Yumeng Yan: Possessive modifiers are not specific, but in some languages, such as Hungarian, they can move to the Focus Phrase, another functional projection of the left periphery (Ihsane&Puskás, 2001). Is it the same for English and could you give us an example to illustrate it?

Prof. Genoveva Puskás: I am not sure whether the question is relevant DP-internally or at the sentence level. In Hungarian, possessive modifiers, like ‘John’s’ or ‘my’ can occur in two positions within the DP: either in a position that would nowadays be considered as a low N related position (within nP or right above, for example in PossP); or a higher position which had been analyzed by Szabolcsi (1983) as a DP-edge position (i.e. spec DP). English seems to have only the high position, as attested by the presence of adjectival modifiers between the possessor and the possessum. At the sentence level, the Hungarian possessive modifiers have the interesting particularity to move out of the DP to occupy a high, left peripheral position. This has been claimed to be possible because specDP would function as an “escape hatch”, (or because, in more recent terms, it occupies an edge position in DP). There is some particularly relevant literature on this by den Dikken (1999, 2015), den Dikken and Dékány (2018), or E.-Kiss (2014). Now while other languages in the world have this external possessive construction, this is not the case for English: English does not seem to have such an option, and extraction of the possessive modifier is hence not possible.

References

[1] Ihsane, Tabea & Genoveva Puskás. 2001. Specific is not Definite. Generative Grammar in Geneva 2: 39-54

[2] Dikken, M. den & Éva Dékány. 2018. A Restriction on Recursion. Syntax Vol. 21 (2018) 1, 37-71

[3] Szabolcsi, Anna. 1983. The possessor that ran away from home. The Linguistic Review 3: 89-102.

[4] É. Kiss K. 2014. Ways of Licensing external possessors: preliminary version of Ways of licensing Hungarian external possessors. Acta Linguistica Hungarica Vol. 61 (2014) 1, 45-68.

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编辑：马晓彤 闫玉萌 陈金玉 王平

排版：马晓彤 闫玉萌 高洁

审校：王丽媛 李芳芳