现代吴语的类型学

Typology of Modern Wu Dialects

在现代汉语方言群之中,吴方言有最长的研究历史而且有全面性的记述。不过现代语言学家却很少讨论过吴方言整体性语言构造上的特征。为了进一步了解吴方言,为了更深刻地分析吴方言,类型学上的鸟瞰是必须的。本文提出这方面的一些初步看法来请求读者指教。1.类型的南北推移汉语的发展在东亚大陆有几千年的比较稳定的历史。所以现在我们从东北到岭南能够发现渐变的语言构造的类型推移。

It has been noted that there is a distinct structural transition from the north tothe south in modern Chinese dialects, and these dialects constitute a beatltiful typo-logical continuum, which can be extended to the Altaic languages to the north and tothe Austroasiatic languages to the south. The Wu dialects constitute, in their syntax,phonotactics and tonal system, an intermediate type between this north-south contrast. Intheir suprasegmental features, too, Wu can be regarded as an intermediate one betweenthe northern and the southern languages. Yue dialects, like Tai or Vietnamese, are charac-terized as typical, monosyllabic tone-languages; Min and some Hakka dialects mark theirsyntagmas by changing tones of the syllables that occur as the final ones of syntagmas.In the case of Wu, polysyllabic words are characterized by the dominance of the tonesthat fall on the initial syllables, tones of any other syllables being totally assimilated tothat of the initial syllables. Wu polysyllabic words are thu rked by single 'tone-enve-lopes'. Further to the north, realization of syllable tone in northern Chinese dependson the stress of a given syllable; Dunganese, spoken in the northern part of the Chineselanguage territory, has a tonal system almost entirely predictable by its stress accentsystem -- a feature which reminds us of the Altaic sound system. Another feature whichuniquely characterizes Wu among modern Chinese dialects is its distinct tendency to sim-plify triphthongs and diphthongs into monophthongs or, at most, to diphthongs--a uniquefeature of modern Miao and Yao. We interpret that phonology of languages like Miao orYao underlie this Wu feature, the former being the substratum of Wu. This Miao-Yaoconnection of Wu is further supported by the structural parallelism between Wu and Miao-Yao demonstratives. Our understanding is that Wu demonstratives, together with those ofmodern Tibetan, Yao, etc., consist of two sets: one for deixis and the other tbr ana- phora, the latter being ordinarily defined as th specific demonstratives' by the Chineselingnists. A further connection between Wu and Miao-Yao can be shown by the presenceof one more set of demonstratives in both Miao and some Chinese dialects spoken in thesouthern part of Zhejiang. This set, expressing things near vs. far, up vs. down, andinside vs. outside all not in the sight of the speaker, shows one to one parallelism be-tween these two languages.