从带点与不带点的原字论说契丹语“性”语法范畴

Discussion to the Grammatical Category of "Gender" in Khitan Small Scripts from the Theory on Dotted and Dotless Original Characters

契丹小字中有一部分成对的原字,虽然笔画、笔顺、笔势基本相同,但二者之间在右侧是否加“点”方面存在差异。在音义方面二者之间究竟有何内在联系?过去,曾有不少学者对此进行过研究,提出了种种设想。但至今仍无使人满意的答案。考察所有“带点的字”的出现环境,发现带点与不带点的原字在词汇意义方面并没有歧义,而在语法意义方面有着明显的差异,即带点的原字一般用于修饰限定男性,不带点的原字一般用于修饰限定女性。这是契丹语中存在“性”语法范畴的重要论据。

In the Khitan Small Script, there are couples of original characters, which are basically identical in strokes but different from each other because of the writing with or without ＂dot＂. Is there any inherent relation in pronunciation or meaning between the two types？ Many scholars worked on the issue and gave different explanations. However, there is no content answer up to now. Observing the context of ＂dotted original characters＂, there is no difference in meaning but a grammatical difference can be obvious： the dotted original characters are generally used to modify words that indicate ＇male＇ while the dotless original characters are generally used to modify words that indicate＇female＇. This is an important evidence that the Khitan language has the grammatical category of ＂gender＂.