是什麼讓我們說話的語速變慢？

5月14日，ScienceDaily發布了一則新聞▼

該新聞表示，名詞使我們說話的速度變慢了。此報道基於Frank Seifart等人寫的一篇文章：Nouns slow down speech across structurally and culturally diverse languages.下面一起來看看新聞的具體內容還有此篇文章的摘要譯文。該文發表於Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2018; 201800708 DOI:10.1073/pnas.1800708115

下面是分別是該新聞和這篇論文摘要的中譯文。

ScienceDaily新聞譯文▼

名詞使我們說話速度變慢

說話者會猶豫，或者出現短暫的停頓，伴隨著像是「呃」或「嗯」的聲音，這種情況多數發生在名詞之前。而在動詞之前，這種「減速效應」要少得多。目前，蘇黎世大學（UZH）的研究人員以及一個國際團隊通過觀察不同語言中的例子發現了上述規律。

當我們說話時，有些單詞的發音速度就是會無意識地比其他單詞慢，而且有時候我們會做短暫的停頓或者插入無意義的類似於「嗯」的聲音。這種減速效應為大腦如何處理語言提供了關鍵證據。它們在設想某個特定單詞的表達之時，顯示出了困難。

為了了解這種減速效應是如何發揮作用的，由阿姆斯特丹大學Frank Seifart領導的研究團隊和UZH的Balthasar Bickel教授分析了屬於世界各地不同的語言、文化人群的數千個自發性言語錄音，包括亞馬遜熱帶雨林、西伯利亞、喜馬拉雅山和喀拉哈里沙漠地區，還有英語和荷蘭語。

名詞更難準備

對於這些錄音，研究人員在名詞（如friend）和動詞（如come）之前考察了減速效應。他們測量了每秒說話的速度，並注意說話者是否做出短暫停頓。「我們發現，在這些語言的多樣化樣本中，與動詞相比，名詞前出現減速效應的傾向十分強烈。原因是名詞更難準備，因為它們通常只在代表新信息的時候使用。」Bickel和Seifart解釋道。否則，它們就會被代詞代替或者省略。如：My friend came back. She (my friend) took a seat.或者My friend came back and took a seat.而對於動詞來說，沒有這樣的替換原則——不管是代表新的還是舊的信息，它們都被廣泛地使用。

擴大語言網路

這一發現對我們理解人腦如何處理語言具有重要意義。未來的神經科學研究需要更系統地關注對話中所使用單詞的信息價值，以及大腦對這些價值差異作何反應。另外，未來的研究需要擴大其數據。「我們發現英語（多數研究都是基於此）展現出了學習中最特別的行為。」Bickel說。因此，擴大處理研究中所考慮的語言的網路是很重要的，包括世界各地罕見的，經常瀕臨滅絕的語言，以便我們了解人類語言。

這些發現也為語言學中長期存在的難題提供了新的線索。例如，研究結果表明了語法如何隨時間推移而演變的普遍長期影響：名詞前的減速效應使其更難通過縮寫它之前的單詞來形成複雜的形式。例如在德語中，動詞前綴（ent-kommen, ver-kommen, be-kommen, vor-kommen,等）要比名詞前綴常見得多。

於更普遍的層面而言，這項研究有助於更深入地理解語言在自然環境中是如何運作的。考慮到數字時代的語言交流所面臨的挑戰，這樣的理解變得越來越重要。在數字時代，我們更多地使用人工系統來交流——這些系統可能不會像人類那樣在名詞之前減慢速度。

英語原文▼

Speakers hesitate or make brief pauses filled with sounds like "uh" or "uhm" mostly before nouns. Such slow-down effects are far less frequent before verbs, as UZH researchers working together with an international team have now discovered by looking at examples from different languages.

When we speak, we unconsciously pronounce some words more slowly than others, and sometimes we make brief pauses or throw in meaningless sounds like "uhm." Such slow-down effects provide key evidence on how our brains process language. They point to difficulties when planning the utterance of a specific word.

To find out how such slow-down effects work, a team of researchers led by Frank Seifart from the University of Amsterdam and Prof. Balthasar Bickel from UZH analyzed thousands of recordings of spontaneous speech from linguistically and culturally diverse populations from around the world, including the Amazon rainforest, Siberia, the Himalayas, and the Kalahari desert, but also English and Dutch.

Nouns are more difficult to plan

In these recordings the researchers looked at slow-down effects before nouns (like "friend") and verbs (like "come"). They measured the speed of utterance in sounds per second and noted whether speakers made short pauses. "We discovered that in this diverse sample of languages, there is a robust tendency for slow-down effects before nouns as compared to verbs," explain Bickel and Seifart. "The reason is that nouns are more difficult to plan because they"re usually only used when they represent new information." Otherwise they are replaced with pronouns (e.g., "she") or omitted, as in the following example: "My friend came back. She (my friend) took a seat" or "My friend came back and took a seat." No such replacement principles apply to verbs -- they are generally used regardless of whether they represent new or old information.

Widen the net of languages

This discovery has important implications for our understanding of how the human brain processes language. Future neuroscience research needs to look more systematically at the information value of words used in conversation, and how the brain reacts to differences in these values. Also, future research needs to broaden its data. "We found that English, on which most research is based, displayed the most exceptional behavior in our study," says Bickel. It is thus important to widen the net of languages considered in processing research, including rare, often endangered languages from around the world, to inform our understanding of human language.

The findings also shed new light on long-standing puzzles in linguistics. For example, the findings suggest universal long-term effects on how grammar evolves over time: The slow-down effects before nouns make it more difficult for nouns to develop complex forms through contraction with words that precede them. In German, for example, prefixes are far more common in verbs (ent-kommen, ver-kommen, be-kommen, vor-kommen, etc.) than in nouns.

At a more general level, the study contributes to a deeper understanding of how languages work in their natural environment. Such an understanding becomes increasingly important given the challenges that linguistic communication faces in the digital age, where we communicate more and more with artificial systems -- systems that might not slow down before nouns as humans naturally do.

論文摘要譯文▼

Nouns slow down speech across structurally and culturally diverse languages

在結構和文化各異的語言中名詞使說話速度變慢

Frank Seifarta，Jan Strunk, Swintha Danielsen, Iren Hartmann, Brigitte Pakendorf, S?ren Wichmann，Alena Witzlack-Makarevich, Nivja H. de Jong，and Balthasar Bickel

由於自然的力量，每一種口語都是以特定的速度產生的。然而，這種速度並不是恆定的，說話者通常會加快或放慢速度。語速的變化受多種因素綜合影響，包括辭彙的頻率和可預測性，信息狀態及其在話語中的位置。在這裡，我們使用語速作為辭彙準備嘗試的指標，並把注意力集中在時間窗口上。在此期間，發言者從兩個主要的辭彙類別——名詞和動詞中產出單詞。我們發現，當自然話語從世界各地的語言中被採樣時，與動詞相比，名詞前出現減速效應的傾向十分強烈，體現在更慢的發音和更多的停頓這兩方面。我們將這種減速效應歸因於名詞比動詞需要更多的準備。與動詞不同，名詞通常只能用於表示新的或意料之外的信息， 否則就必須用代詞替代或省略。這些關於名詞的使用條件似乎超過了由於名詞和動詞之間的內在複雜性差異而產生的潛在優勢。我們的研究結果表明，在語法結構和文化背景存在巨大差異的情況之下，語言處理具有很強的普遍性，這與說話者在和他人交流時如何管理指示信息密切相關。

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