吴语的句法类型特点

Two Major Typological Features of Wu Dialects

本文根据12个吴方言点的调查材料,揭示吴语的两大句法类型特点。一、吴语是比北京话更不典型的SVO类型和比北京话更典型的话题优先类型。吴语的静态句(惯常行为句、嵌入句等)一般只用SVO型,但其他情况下常由受事充当话题(特别是主语后动词前的次话题),形成STV或TSV。在是非疑问句、否定句中话题句更占明显优势。这种趋势在浙江沿海吴语中尤为突出,其进一步发展有可能导致STV向SOV的历史演变,只是目前尚未到此阶段。二。吴语像北京话一样前置词和后置词并存,但后置词比北京话更为发达,表现在语法比程度更高、在句法结构中的作用更重要。这与吴语正在接近动词居末类型的事实是相和谐的。

Based on fieldwork materials of 12 Wu dialects, this paper shows two major typological features of Wu dialects. Firstly, Wu dialects are even less typical than Mandarin as SVO-type, but are more typical than it as topic-prominent type. In static clauses (sentences telling of habits, embedded clauses, etc.) SVO order is dominant, but in other cases, the patient often occurs as topic, typically as sub-topic located between subject and the verb, resulting in the STV or TSV pattern. Topicalization is predominant in polarity questions and negative clauses. This tendency is stronger in coastal dialects of Zhejiang province. A further development of this situation might lead to a typological shift from STV to SOV. So far, however, no single dialect of Wu has completed such a shift. Secondly, Wu dialects, like Mandarin, are of both prepositions and postpositions, but their postposition system is more advanced than that of Mandarin in that there are richer highly grammaticalized postpositions which play more active syntactic roles in Wu dialects than in Mandarin. This feature is in accordance with the fact that Wu dialects are approaching to a verb-final type.