论“老小”的“妻子”义——兼谈称谓语在突显原则下的意义变化

On Wife-One of the Three Meanings of Laoxiao in Ancient Chinese: With a Discussion about the Semantic Change of Address Terms under the Principle of Prominence

"老小"一词的指称范围由指代全体家庭成员缩小到特指妻子,"妻子"、"妻小"、"家眷"等称谓语表现出与之相同的演变轨迹,从认知的角度来看,这一意义演变主要是突显原则下转喻思维的结果,其内在的文化心理基础是"女主内"的家庭格局和民俗传统。"老小"表示"妻子"义的用法始见于宋代《鸡肋编》,属于南方方言用法,语频低,语用范围狭窄,在语义竞争中一直处于劣势,《水浒传》等沿用了这一义项。

The term laoxiao（老小） has three meanings at least.It literally refers to grown-ups and children,which usually represent common people.Later it stands for all members of one＇s family.And it develops to indicate one＇s wife（妻子 or qizi）.It is a normal change of semantic meaning in terms of Chinese address terms.In ancient Chinese,for example,the term妻子（qizi） usually meant one＇s wife（妻or qi） and child（ren）（子or zi）.Gradually,the term that simply referred to one＇s wife became more and more accepted.In the Chinese language of recent antiquity and of modern age,qizi（妻子） meant ″woman ＋ spouse″.In terms of traditional semantics,the semantic change of qizi proves a model of evolvement from generic term to specific term.In terms of the relationship between language,social mentality and folk culture,the said change shows the result of a metonymy model under the principle of prominence,whose internal cognitive foundation is the Chinese traditional family structure and the psychology of folk culture.