古汉语虚词研究评议

A Brief Introduction to Comments on Researches into Ancient Chinese Functional Words

中国古代的虚词研究有其不可抹煞的成绩,但是它始终只是训诂学、辞章学的附庸,没有进入语法学的范畴。《经传释词》虽是古代虚词研究成就最高的代表作,却也不免给训诂式的虚词研究开了失误的先河。《5氏文通》能从语法系统的角度来考虑问题,某些论述比现在许多语法论著还要高明,但是《文通》是一部泛时的语法著作,缺乏明确的历史发展观点,难免带来某些不足或失误。20世纪50年代以后的古汉语虚词专著仍不免杂有传统训诂的影响,但已有某些论文开始把虚词的历时的追本溯源和共时的系统分析结合起来,既关注每个虚词的历史变化,又重视各个时期虚词系统的发展,预示了虚词研究又一个新阶段的到来。

It can not be denied that researches on functional words in ancient China had achieved greatly, nevertheless, they were mere handmaids of classic philological studies, and never researched into the field of grammar. Jing Zhuan Shi Ci was the representative work on functional words best accomplished in ancient China, but it misled other researchers to study functional words in an exegetical approach. Ma Shi Wen Tong dealt with its research work from the view of system grammar, and some of its ideas were more brilliant than many other grammatical works in the history even nowadays. However, it is a pan-chronic grammatical work, and in want of the viewpoint of historical development. It has some deficiencies or mistakes unavoida- bly. From 1950s, what deserves the greatest attention is that some papers began to combine diachronic analy- sis with synchronic research on functional words. They pay close attention to the historical changes of every functional word while attaching importance to the systematic development of functional words through differ- ent periods of time, which indicates the coming of a new stage of research on functional words.