英汉名词性成分的语法化——兼论英语句法语序

Grammaticalization of English and Chinese NPs——With Specific Reference to the Word Order of English

英汉名词及名词词组的构造、语法化、词序与词序变化过程显示:语言结构从句法到词法的发展过程中,存在语序调整或不明显调整两种情况,并依不同语言的语法特点而定。英语从句法到词法过程中经历语序调整,汉语则呈现词序与句序相互映照的关系。语言间的这种不统一使得以今天的词法构拟远古句法的设想并不能在所有语言中都可靠。另外,某些表面似与句法有关的词语结构并不来自于句法的演变,这是又一使得以上设想不可靠的因素。

The study of the construction, word order and grammaticalization of English and Chinese NPs indicates that there is a word order change in English in the development from its syntactic structure to morphological structure, and no change is found in Chinese during the process. Such difference between one language and the other makes it difficult and doubtful to reconstruct the ancient syntactic structure of a language based on the present morphological structure. Besides, some seemingly related morphological structures are found not developed from any ancient syntactic structure, which is another factor supporting this argument.