Seven Questions for a Theory of Speech
七问有关言语理论
Alvin M.Liberman

Abstract 摘要
My aim is to ventilate a question about biology of langiage that has long preoccupied me; Is there a linguistic mode--that is, a specifically linguistic way of doing things --at the level of action and perception? In the time allotted to me, I mean to parse that question and invite your attention to its various aspects. To keep question and anther within the bounds of matters I am supposed to know something about, I will limit my discussion to speech in the narrow sense -- restriction takes the limitation of my own knowledge properly into account, while nevertheless permitting me, I hope, to speak to the broader purposes of this symposium. It is surely relevant to such purposes that speech in the narrow sense underlies the phonological system that constitutes full half of the dual structure that characterizes all languages, the other half being syntax; and that some of the question I raise about the one half find counter parts in the other.

1. IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHONOLOGICAL COMMUNICATION, WHAT EVELVED?

2. HOW IS THE REQUIREMENT FOR PARITY MET?

3. HOW IS SPEECH RELATED TO OTHER NATURAL MODES OF COMMUNICATION?

4. WHAT ARE THE (SPECIAL) REQUIREMENTS OF PHONOLOGICAL COMMUNICATION, AND HOW ARE THEY MET?

5. COULD THE ASSIGNMENT OF THE STIMULUS INFORMATION TO PHONETIC CATEGORIES PLAUSIBLY BE AUDITORY?

6. JUST HOW ‘SPECIAL’ IS SPEECH PERCEPTION?

7. HOW DO SPEAKING AND LISTENING DIFFER FROM WRITING AND READING?