英汉语量词的认知对比——从认知上的“有界性”看英汉语量词对名词的“标记性”

Cognitive Contrasts of English & Chinese Quantifiers——Quantifiers Marking Nouns in Terms of Bounded Property in Sense of Cognition

名词短语接受还是拒绝数量词的限定,能直接反映人对外界认知的机制。对于英汉语数量词对名词短语有无标记的对比研究表明:人们易把在认知上凸显的事物看作有界个体事物,在语法结构上以“显眼形式”即用数量词标记,在该层面上英汉两种语言有同质性;在认知结构上不很凸现的事物易被看作无界事物,可用“不显眼形式”,但两种语言在透明度上存在异质性——汉语用无标记的光杆名词来表达,透明度大;英语则依据语境而定,隐晦度大。

Whether a noun phrase is modified by quantifiers is the direct reflection of human cognitive mechanism on what is in the outside world. Through the contrastive study of English and Chinese quantifiers, it is further found that the salient things in human cognition are easily taken as bounded, correspondingly, in syntactic construction noun phrases are marked in marked form - quantifiers. At this level, two languages have homogeneity. Besides, non - salient things are easily taken as unbounded and accordingly noun phrases refuse to be modified by marked form -quantifiers in syntactic construction. In the latter case, Chinese is expressed in unmarked form -bare noun with transparency degree while English varies with contexts, with opaqueness.