关于形合与意合问题的几点思考

Some theoretical considerations on the issue of xinghe and yihe

本文在梳理前人有关论述的基础上,讨论形合与意合问题。文章指出,形合与意合同英语的hypotaxis与parataxis并不是两对彼此相当的概念,相互间存在明显差异。笔者认为,形合与意合这对概念是在特定历史条件下对汉语和印欧语的表达方式做比较的产物,有很充足的语言类型学方面的"理据";无论对于不同语言的对比研究,还是对于一般的语言研究,都是一对很有用的概念,值得深入探讨。同时指出,这对概念至今还缺乏一个明确的、为大家所公认的定义,因而很有必要区分不同的语言层面,对形合与意合做出严格而科学的界定。

After a critical review of previous studies on the issue,this paper offers some theoretical considerations on xinghe and yihe,a much discussed topic in the Chinese linguistics community.It argues that xinghe and yihe on one hand and hypotaxis and parataxis on the other are not corresponding pairs of concepts,with considerable discrepancies between the two.The author holds that the concepts of xinghe and yihe are primarily the outcome of the repeated comparison between Chinese and Indo-European languages over the past one hundred years and several decades,and their use is typologically justified and quite significant not only to contrastive studies between different languages but also to the study of language in general.It is also pointed out that a clear,rigorous,and scientific definition of this pair of terms is yet to be formulated for different linguistic levels.