六十年来的语言学研究已经证实,语言的表征需要以嵌套树状结构的方式来完成[4]。相似的,一些利用更简单的实验范式开展的行为学及神经生理学的研究表明,在对声音序列和动作序列编码时,不仅采用了简单的串联模式,而是存在很多不同的表征形式。Dehaene等人[5]的研究综述中指出,序列中包含抽象程度逐渐增加的五种信息:转换及时间信息、组块、次序信息、代数规则及嵌套树状结构(图1)。之前的研究已经明确的表明动物可以利用前四种信息进行序列编码[6-9]。
人类的语言包含复杂的嵌套树状结构[4,5]。比如句子 The cars [that pass this truck] are red,尽管中间插入的句子中存在一个名词(truck),但系动词(are)却是用来连接复数主语(cars)和表语(red)的。这种长距离的相关性正是语言的重要特征,只有以树形结构表征语言时,才能忽略“cars”和“are”在时间距离上的差距,进而连接在一起(图2)。
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