汉语变调构词中的语义演变

Semantic Change and Tone-modification in Chinese Morphology

本文利用《汉语变调构词考辨》(2015)的材料进行语义演变的研究,通过考察1075对原始词和滋生词的变调类型,及其体现的词性和词义的相关关系,得出以下结论:(1)变调构词的语义演变总体呈现综合性提高的特点,即滋生动词对论元搭配的要求更具体(即“词义缩小”)时或者名词所指范围缩小时,更倾向于以变调来固定;(2)在一对动名转类中,名词(原始词或滋生词)越偏离对应动词的主体论元,滋生词发生变调的可能性越高,即当滋生名词位于主体>客体>旁体序列中越靠后的位置,或者滋生动词是将序列中越靠后的语义角色打包进动词中,越倾向于发生变调;(3)大量“使动式”“被动式”和“既事式”由于发生了核心论元的变化,也倾向于以变调来进行标记.

This paper concentrates on semantic changes based on 1075 primitive and derived word pairs from Sun(2015). Our observation of the tone-modification types and their relevance to changes of word class and lexical meaning has led to the following conclusion. First, the derived meanings usually become more synthetical than their primitive ones, in other words, if a derived verb has a more elaborate selection for its arguments or a derived noun has a more restricted reference, tone modification tends to occur to settle the new meaning. Second, in a v-n pair, the more oblique is a noun towards the verb, the more likely tone modification occurs. Third, tone-modification involves causative,passive and past tense/perfect aspect morphology. However, morphological explanation encounters challenges in form-meaning/function matching. We argue that what they share in common is valence change, and tone modification is a measurement to mark the significant meaning change.