嵌偶单音词与半自由语素

Qian’ou Monosyllabic Words and Semi-Free Morphemes

嵌偶单音词(下称"嵌偶词")在现代汉语中的表现不如"手、笑、风、好"等单音词自由。它既不能作为一句话单独出现,在句法中的分布也受到限制。所以大多数研究者把这种单音成分的语法属性定义成"半自由语素"。但是这样的定性掩盖了嵌偶词的本质。本文认为,嵌偶词本身没有"半自由句法性质",因为它不是句法不自由,而是其特殊的韵律属性要求它必须与邻近成分搭配成双才能出现,它的不自由主要来自韵律的限制。因此不能说嵌偶词是句法上的"半自由",但可以说它是"句法自由,韵律黏着"类型的"半自由"——它是句法自由和韵律不自由相合的产物。

For a long time,in Chinese lexical study,"freedom"is a criterion used to distinguish"word"from non-word unit.Freedom often means being able to form sentences independently.For example,"Where are you going?School.""School"can appear as an independent sentence,so it is considered a free word.This method of judging words was mentioned in Bloomfield(1926).Then Lu(1962 a)applies this method to Chinese language.However,different from the English words,some Chinese words cannot be used as an independent utterance,but they can be used as syntactic components independently.Lu(1959)and Zhang(1981)calls it a"semifree morpheme"in Chinese.This is the first method in Chinese to define the concept of"semi-free".Its criterion is to see whether the linguistic unit is a free independent utterance or not.We name this method as"free utterance"method.After more than two decades,Dong(2004)provides another definition to the concept of"semi-free morpheme."But the term is a homonym to the previous one because Dong’s definition of semi-free morphemes used a different criterion.She uses semi-free morphemes to define those words whose distribution is limited,less free than those typical free morphemes.In her book,she mentions the example of xiao(校,"school").In Chinese,xuexiao(学校,"school")and xiao both mean"school"and both are nouns.But xiao is less free than xuexiao because it cannot stand as an independent utterance and it cannot appear as a subject in Chinese.This is the second method to define the concept of"semi-free".Its criterion is whether the syntactic distribution of the words is free or not.We name the second method as"freedistribution"method.Regardless of the two definition methods mentioned above,semi-free morphemes refer to language units that are less free than typical free morphemes.It is somewhat limited.Although there are characteristics of words,they cannot be called as typical free words.In Feng(2000)and Huang(2008)etc,they name a group of special monosyllabic words in Chinese,called Qian’ou Monosyllabic Words(literally disyllable-embedded monowords,hereafter,QOWd).QOWd,such as xiao(校"school"),bi(避"to avoid"),an(案"case")etc,are also less free than most of the monowords in modern Chinese.For example,xuexiao and xiao has the same meaning and the same syntactic function,but xiao seems to be less free than xuexiao because it does not work with disyllabic noun words or stand alone as an independent utterance,even though it works perfectly with monosyllabic noun.Then,is QOWd a semi-free morpheme?In fact,the definition of semi-free morphemes and the lexical issues involved have always been a topic that has been widely discussed.It involves many concepts such as"words,morphemes,freedom,adhesion"used in modern Chinese linguistics.We want to reconsider the underlying arguments behind semi-free morpheme definition through the discussion of the QOWd in modern Chinese.The general conclusion of this article is that the freedom cannot be defined simply by whether it is independent of a sentence or by the degree of freedom of distribution.Because the freedom in the traditional definition is the result of interactions at different levels of language.The QOWds are not semi-free morphemes because(1)they are not semi-free;(2)they are not morphemes.In terms of their freedom,they are syntactically free,but prosodically adhesive.The reason why they are less free is not because of their syntactic attributes,but of their prosodic features.QOWd must appear in pairs each time when they appear in modern Chinese.Due to prosodic attribute,QOWd cannot comptetely freely distribute in syntactic structure and become an independent sentence either.This article lists five groups of minimal pairs when xiao/xuexiao are used with localizers,prepositions,determiners,nouns,and adjectives to support the above arguments.These examples are to demonstrate that both of the words have the same syntactic attributes,but are different in prosodic attribute.We select some of the minimal pairs from each of the groups and show them below.(1)xiao/xuexiao+localizer:"outside of school"^(*)xiao waimian(^(*)校外面)xuexiao waimian(学校外面)"inside school"^(*)xiao neibu(^(*)校内部)xuexiao neibu(学校内部)(2)preposition+xiao/xuexiao"grouped by school"^(*)anzhao xiao fenzu(^(*)按照校分组)anzhao xuexiao fenzu(按照学校分组)(3)verb+xiao/xuexiao"return to school"^(*)fanhui xiao(^(*)返回校)fanhui xuexiao(返回学校)"come to school"^(*)laidao xiao(^(*)来到校)laidao xuexiao(来到学校)(4)xiao/xuexiao used as a modifier"school door"^(*)xiao damen(^(*)校大门)xiaomen(校门)(5)xiao/xuexiao is modified"broken school"^(*)pojiu xiao(^(*)破旧校)poxiao(破校)As can be seen from these examples,xiao and xuexiao can appear in the typical syntax position of nouns,like object of verbs and prepositions,as modifiers,or be modified,or used with localizers and with denominators.But the only constraint is that it must appear in disyllabic forms.In fact,the article shows that there are ten typical syntactic positions for nouns in modern Chinese.Xiao cannot appear in two of them:one is the subject and the other is with Num+Quantity structures,both of which are difficult for QOWd to become disyllabic forms.Therefore,QOWd is syntactically free,but prosodically adhesive.Since a morpheme is a lexical unit toanalyze word-formations,instead of being used as a syntactic component,QOWd has syntactic functions and is used freely in syntactic sense.We take QOWd a syntactic free and prosodic adhesive word instead of a semi-free morpheme.