从语气副词的句法分布透视其语用功能

A Study of the Pragmatic Functions of Modal Adverbs according to Their Syntactic Distribution

语气副词是表达语气的语法成分,也常常跟语用因素直接关联。语气副词既可出现于动态句子中,也可以用于静态短语中。本文援引“小句中枢说”和生成语法的“X—阶标理论”讨论不同位置上的语气副词的句法特征和语用功能的差异。我们进而认为,按照最简方案下“广义左向合并理论”,语气副词一律都是在语段生成时左向附加上去的,可以附加于VP,vP和TP等多种不同的句法节点,并非必然地附加于句子的最外层。

Modal adverbs are special grammatical constituents, and are always associated with pragmatic factors. These adverbs can be placed not only in dynamic sentences, but also in static phrases. They may have different pragmatic functions when placed in different syntactic positions. Within a theoretical framework based on the X-bar theory and the Theory of Clausal Pivot, this paper has analyzed the syntactic and pragmatic differences of modal adverbs in different syntactic positions. It is further argued that, according the Principle of Generalized Leftward Merger, those modal adverbs are all added to the left of various syntactic nodes such as VP, vP and TP, and it does not have to be put to the left of a full sentence.