从集合到分配——“都”的语义演变探析

From Collectivity to Distributivity:The Semantic Evolution of Dou(都)

本文在前人研究的基础上重新检视"都"的语义演变。以往研究认为"都"由表聚集义的动词经过作状语的阶段而演变为总括副词。本文认为这种观点值得商榷。主要因为"都"演变过程中的三个特点,即表聚集义的动词"都"用例罕见,"都"作状语的用例极少,"都"在成为副词之初大量跟否定形式和消除类动词性成分连用。本文认为,"都"的总括副词用法由其作为名词性成分时语义里的聚集义要素直接引申而来。人或物聚集的状态是表空间概念的"都"的显著特征,从这一特征出发直接得到表具有共同状态的事物的类聚特征的用法,即总括用法,由此进一步发展出量化副词用法。"都"的演变过程跟"总"形成对比。后者是典型的三阶段发展,而前者只有两个阶段。"都"和"总"都由跟聚集义相关的词发展出量化副词的用法,是殊途同归。本文在分析"都"的语义演变的过程中,给出了集合与分配这两种语义特征之间的对立统一关系,以此说明,聚合义不管经历怎样的过程,最终发展出分配义,其语义的引申都是有较强的内在逻辑语义动因的。

This paper investigates the semantic evolution of dou.It is claimed in previous studies that the adverb dou results from a three-stage evolution process.In the first stage,there is an evolution from the noun dou to the verb dou.In the second stage,the verb dou is used with another verb,expressing the way of the action or the degree of the property denoted by the verbal combination.In the third stage,the verb dou evolves into a collective adverb.In this paper,we provide three pieces of evidence concerning dou’s usage in the history of Chinese to argue against such a three-stage process account.We show that(i)dou was seldom used as a collective verb,(ii)or as an adverbial modifier,(iii)dou frequently co-occurred with negatives or verbs expressing disappearance or elimination.We thus conclude that the semantic evolution of dou is a two-stage process:dou as a collective adverb is directly evolved from the noun dou but not from the verb dou.As a noun which means a big city or a place where people gather,the prominent sememe of dou is collectivity or gathering,which contributes to the evolution of dou into a collective adverb.Our work also reflects the contrast between dou and zong(总)in terms of their evolution process:the former evolved from a noun to an adverb of collection,while the latter evolved from a verb to an adverbial modifier and then to an adverb of collection.Moreover,our study also examines the logical relation between the collectivity and the distributivity.We argue that although obvious differences exist in the sememes of the two semantic categories,the similarities between them should not be neglected.Specifically,the notion of distributivity requires that each member of the set in question get the same property so that all members in the set become an entirety.As to the notion of collectivity,if each sub-participant takes a similar responsibility in one collective event,then the distributive reading obtains from a certain perspective.It is this semantic connection that motivates the evolution from collectivity to distributivity.