形式语义学视角下上海话句末语气词“咾”的统一解释

A Unified Approach to the Semantics of Shanghainese Sentence⁃final Mood Particle Lo

文章对文献中提及的上海话句末语气词“咾”的十余种用法进行梳理,将之分为非互动性用法(包括表达时序和因果关系等)以及互动性用法(包括强调言者的肯定、指引闻者行动以及向闻者确认言者的判断),并运用形式语义学工具对这两类用法背后的逻辑本质做更准确的描述。文章认为,“咾”的核心意义为添加操作,非互动性用法对应命题层面的添加;互动性用法则对应语义—语用层面的添加,而前人文献中所总结的“咾”的十余种语气并不一定是“咾”本身的意义贡献,而是添加操作在不同的意义层面与世界知识、语境信息、语用推理等因素互动所产生的伴随意义。此外,添加操作亦可以解释“咾”做句内连词的情况,由此,文章认为“咾”在句内和句末的表现皆传递添加义。文章亦指出添加义这一共通之处能够为“咾”相关的类型学研究和历史语言学研究提供来自语义角度的动因和理据。

This paper sorts out the various uses of the sentence final particle lo in Shanghainese generalized in the literature and categorized them into two major types,i.e.,non⁃interactive uses(expressing temporal ordering,and causal relation)and interactive uses(emphasizing the speaker's certainty,guiding the addressee's action,and confirming the speaker's judgment with the addressee).It is argued that the core semantics of lo is additivity(Zeevat&Jasinkaja 2007),and that the non⁃interactive uses correspond to additive operations at or below the propositional level,while the interactive uses correspond to additive operations at the semantic⁃pragmatic interface.The various uses discussed in the existing literature may not be the semantic contribution of lo per se;rather,they are an epiphenomenon caused by the interaction of lo and other factors including world knowledge,contextual information and pragmatic inference.Also,additivity can account for the cases where lo serves as an intra⁃clausal connective.Thus,this paper offers a unified definition for sentence⁃final lo and clausal⁃internal lo,which provides semantic motivation and explanation for Liu(2011)'s typological work on the prominence of coordinate structures in Shanghainese and Feng(2009)'s work on the grammaticalization and subjectivazation of lo.