沃尔夫论隐性范畴

On Whorf's covert category,

Whorf关于隐性范畴的思想在国内外语言学界研究不多 ,却十分重要 ,被Halliday称为“二十世纪语言学的主要贡献之一”。隐性范畴是指在一般情况下并不出现词素标记的语法范畴 ,它具有暗藏、抽象的本质 ,却在很大程度上是意义之所在。隐性范畴的思想在Whorf理论体系中处于核心地位 ,是Whorf实现其一生的语言学追求的关键。它吸取了Fabred’Olivet、Boas、Sapir等人的研究成果 ,预见了后来Chomsky的研究。在其基础上 ,Halliday提出了语法范畴的“不可言说性”(ineffability) ,Martin考察了他加禄语中的“语法合谋”( grammaticalconspiracies)现象。随着当今认知科学的兴起 ,这一思想的意义将会得到进一步的彰显。

This paper is intended to review B.L.Whorf's notion of the covert category, which is considered by M.A.K. Halliday to be among the major contributions of twentieth century linguistics. A covert category is a category having markers that ordinarily do not appear — they appear only in certain ‘test' types of sentences. Covert categories are hidden, cryptic by nature; however they are just where linguistic meanings dwell. The notion of the covert category is at the heart of the Whorf Theory Complex. It is of vital importance to Whorf's linguistic pursuit. This notion has foreshadowed many aspects of Chomskyan linguistics and has also given much inspiration to such systemic linguists as M.A.K. Halliday and J.R.Martin. With the development of modern cognitive science, its merit will be further revealed.