信息量原则与汉语句法组合的韵律模式

Principle of information quantity and the prosodic patterns of Mandarin syntactic structures

对于"大房间"和"纸老虎"等1+2式的汉语定中组合,端木三(Duanmu,1990、2000)提出的"辅重"原则和冯胜利(2000)提出的"音步组向规则"都难以处理。本文借鉴Selkirk (1984)对英语名名组合的重音分析,揭示了汉语定中组合的内部语义构造与韵律模式的关系,进而引进Cinque(1993)提出的"深重"原则,比照汉语的事实情况,说明深重原则与辅重原则在预测能力上的差别。文章最后着重指出,无论是深重原则还是辅重原则,都只是形式上的描写手段而非解释。我们发现,汉语定语语序的排列与定中组合的韵律模式有着重要的关联,根据袁毓林(1999)的研究,定语语序的排列受到信息量的控制,因此,本文提出:在汉语句法组合中,信息量大的成分将得到重音,而信息量小的成分得不到重音。

Neither Duanmu's non-head stress principle (1990, 2000) nor Feng's foot formation rule (2000) could account for some Mandarin modifier-head constructions, e.g. da fanjian (大房间) and zhi laohu (纸老虎). After reviewing Selkirk (1984) on the stress assignment on English noun compounds, this paper reveals the relation between the inner semantic structures of modifier-head constructions and the prosodic patterns in Mandarin. By the comparison with non-head stress principle, Cinque's depth stress rule (1993) proves more advantageous in predicting the prosodic patterns in Mandarin. The paper pinpoints additionally the relevance between the order of modifiers and their prosodic weight. Following Yuan's idea (1999) that the order of modifiers is subject to the information quantity, this paper proposes that in a given syntactic structure in Mandarin the units with higher information quantity tends to be stressed while the units with lower are not.