中古汉语的“儿”后缀

The suffix-er in Middle Chinese

王力《汉语史稿》论及"语法的发展"认为词尾"儿"是从唐代才开始产生的。本文依据佛经语料,发现"儿"后缀早在东汉就已经出现,六朝时代某些带后缀"儿"的派生词已经十分通行,普遍使用于口语当中。其产生的时代应比过去的看法提前许多。在本文中,我们透过较细的断代分析,观察"儿"词尾在历时中的演化状况。就其语法功能而言,曾经历四个阶段的变化。"儿"词尾的发展历史很长,但是每个时代的语义功能都不尽相同。

The-er suffix is a very active element in recent Chinese language.The article traces the origin and development of-er in Middle Chinese Buddhist text records,and try to find and prove the actual time it was first used in Chinese language.According to some scholars,the suffix-er emerged in Tang Dynasty;however,the author diseovers the evidence which shows the earlier usage in oral language in the period of the Six Dynasties by examining the data of Buddhist texts.The paper concludes that there are four stages in the evolution of morphological function of the suffix-er and describes its linguistic nature.