现代汉语中“子”的语法化分析

A Case Study of the Grammaticalization of Zi in Chinese

作为现代汉语中一个广泛使用的虚词,“子”的用法并没有得到充分的描写与解释。从认知语言学的角度对“子”的语法化进行的共时考察表明,“子”作为一个多义范畴,其实在意义与语法意义之间存在有理据的系统联系,在虚词用法中仍然可以看到实词意义的痕迹。关于“子”作为后缀的用法,认知语义分析能够提供比传统分析更令人信服的解释。

As a grammatical morpheme in Chinese, zi occurs in a variety of nouns. However, linguists have so far failed to offer a satisfactory description and explanation of its usage. This paper makes a synchronic analysis of zi from a cognitive linguistic perspective, focusing on its grammaticalization. It argues that zi constitutes a polysemous category, with systematic and motivated connections between its lexical meanings and grammatical meanings. This analysis shows that a cognitive linguistic analysis can provide a better account of the usage of zi than the traditional approach.