‘－S’都到哪裡去了？從語言學與腦神經連接談起

Where Have All the -s's Gone? From the Perspective of Linguistics and Neural Connections in the Brain

Third-person singular present -s and plural marking -s are basic grammar points introduced early on in English language programs. However, it is common to find ESL/EFL learners whose native language is Mandarin Chinese (MC) missing these -s's in their speech and writings. In light of findings in brain studies and neuroscience, this paper explores the issue as a matter of neural connections in the brain, taking into consideration linguistic and neurocognitive linguistic accounts, too. The two -s's at issue are grammatical morphemes that apply generally to verbs and nouns respectively. They fall under the phenomenon known as concord, which requires feature-sharing in certain structure relations. After a brief review of language-related brain structures and functions, we turn to language processing as neural networking in the brain. There are no linguistic 'rules' or 'labels', only synaptic connections that grow from latent, weak, to strong, and into a highly selective information system of relational networks with various activation thresholds that automatically adjust themselves. Learning requires strong stimuli and structural change, which the EFL learner is not getting for the two -s's that attract little attention as non-salient grammatical markers with little meaning of their own: Lacking implicit knowledge for English syntax, the EFL learner may resort to semantics and pragmatics to process English sentences metalinguistically; also, during initial processing of sensory information, the brain tends to automatically filter the two -s's out for, it may be argued, still running on the EFL learner's implicit native language system. Given the current state of research, it is still too early to tell the exact details of how the neurons work in the brain, but it is quite clear that the two -s's will remain a problem unless they can be 'seen' and practiced to the extent that strong connections develop in the neural networking of the EFL learner's brain.英語一般現在式第三人稱單數後綴－S與複數後綴－S是英語教學中很早就介紹的基本文法現象，然而即使有多年經驗，許多母語為漢語的學習、使用者在說與寫英語時仍常有遺漏。參照大腦、神經學、語言學、神經認知語言學諸方面的研究，本文將此現象作為腦中神經連接的問題進行探討分析。就文法而言，這兩個屈折後綴分別與動詞、名詞結合，且在數（前者還有人稱）上與其他結構成分互相制約。人腦中並無語法規則與符號之類物件單位，只有各司其職、互相連通的各語言功能區與無數的神經元與連串結。神經元之間由潛在的連接，經激活形成神經通路，各連接間又不斷自行回饋、調整其連通程度（激活值），進而發展成由連接腦中各語言功能區的有高度選擇性、錯綜複雜的神經網絡組成的自行調節的信息處理系統。學習需要有足夠強的信號輸入來激發新連接的產生，亦即信息處理系統要有結構的改變。連通程度的提升也需要不斷有成功的信息輸入來達成。同樣道理，這兩個後綴的正確使用也需要以相應的神經通路為基礎，而相應神經網絡的形成與連通程度又需要足夠的信息輸入來激發和提升。然而由於腦中尚無有效的相應連接，許多母語為漢語的學習、使用者往往是借重語意和語用而不是句法形態知識來處理英語句子的。作為句法標記的後綴－S本身沒有什麼意義，又不起眼，也因此而很容易就被忽略掉了。再者，所有外來信息的初始過濾和篩選基本上是由大腦自行處理的。在沒有內在的英語系統可用，又沒有可激活的相應的神經通路時，大腦即自動採用已有的母語系統來彌補，結果就把既不引人注目、在母語系統中又不存在的－S過濾掉了。簡而言之，基於學習使用者的策略以及大腦的運作方式，這兩個後綴連被注意到都很難，更不用說激發新連接的產生與提升網絡連通程度了。目前關於神經系統運作的許多細節仍有待探索，但是就已經可以確定的方面來說，想要能夠正確使用這兩個後綴－S，必須能”看”到它們並通過多多練習和使用以形成和提升相關神經網絡的連通才行。