动词非范畴化的特征

Features of Verb Decategorization

动词在非范畴化的过程中或以后逐渐丧失动词的属性特征而获得名词以及次要词类如形容词、副词、介词的属性特征和功能,在语义上,丧失指称意义,不能报告一个事件的发生了,表示某种状态:物理的,心理的,甚至虚拟的。影响动词非范畴化的因素主要有句法结构和语篇情态。句法结构是诱发动词非范畴化的十分重要的因素之一。情态的作用是给话语增加主观性,使话语由真实性情态转变为非真实性情态,从而使动词的各种形态特征和对立中性化。

The decategorization of verbs is characterized by loss of their categorial features and gain of other categorial features. Semantically, they will shift from reporting the occurrence of an event to the state of an event as well as the loss of reference; syntactically, they will lose some or even all their distributional features; functionally, apart from as verbs, they will also serve the role of adjectives, adverbs, prepositions or even nouns. Syntactic environment and modality are the two major factors that motivate the decategorization of verbs. The former serves as external trigger, while the latter acts as the internal motivation to increase the subjectivity of an utterance and change the modality from realis to irrealis, thus neutralizing the morphsyntactic features.