禅宗语录中“在”字句的发展及相关问题析论

A Discussion on the Development of the Sentence Containing the Modal Particle Zai(在)in the Chan Sect’s Quotations and Some Relevant Issues

汉语历史上有一种以语气词“在”煞尾的句子.这种句子唐宋禅宗语录使用最多.从《坛经》到《五灯会元》,禅宗语录中这种“在”字句的发展主要体现在三个方面:使用频率升高;具体格式有发展;句类分布由叙述句、描写句扩展到判断句.这种“在”字依托“有(余)……在”兼语式,在语义、句法位置等诸多因素作用下,通过重新分析逐渐虚化为语气词,始见的时间在唐代.元至明清,“在”字句衰退,但一直有一定数量的用例,此前学者们认为它元代以后逐渐消亡,这是不准确的.现代方言中的句末虚词“在”是唐宋以迄明清煞句语气词“在”的延续,虽然有所发展,但表达肯定语气的作用未变,径称为体标记不妥;它不像早期学者们所认为的那样只见于少数方言,而是有颇为广泛的分布.

There was a kind of sentence ended by the modal particle zai(在) in ancient Chinese. This kind of sentence was often used in Chan sect’s quotations of the Tang and Song Dynasties. From Tanjing(《坛经》) to Wudeng Huiyuan(《五灯会元》), the development of this kind of sentence in Chan sect’s quotations was mainly reflected in three aspects: The frequency increased; the specific patterns developed; the sentence type distribution extended to the judgment sentence from the narrative sentence and the descriptive sentence. This zai grammaticalized into modal particle in jianyu(兼 语) pattern "you(yu)...zai"(有(余) …… 在) due to semantic role, syntactic position and other factors. The modal particle zai appeared in Tang Dynasty. The sentence ended by the modal particle zai declined from Yuan Dynasty to Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty, but a certain number of examples still could be found. The opinion that the sentence ended by the modal particle zai gradually disappeared after Yuan Dynasty is not accurate. The function word zai at the end of sentences in modern dialects is the continuation of the modal particle zai from Tang and Song Dynasties to Ming and Qing Dynasties. Although it has some development, it still expresses an affirmative mood. It should not be called an aspect marker. Scholars think that it can only be found in a small number of dialects, but it actually has a wide range of distribution.