打开“gate”之门——对后缀“-gate”的语法化分析

Opening the Gate of "gate":A Case Study of the Grammaticalization of the Suffix "-gate"

自1972年水门事件被披露以来,"gate"已经从一个独立语素演变为一个专指丑闻的能产性强的后缀。许多学者曾从不同角度对此"gate"现象进行过探讨,但将其与语法化现象相联系的为数甚少。对后缀"-gate"的语法化进行的分析表明,该后缀是两组机制在两个层面运作的结果,即词汇语法层面上的重新分析和类推,语义层面上的认知转喻和隐喻,同时受明晰性、经济性、表达性三个语用动因的驱动。

Since the Watergate scandal was exposed in 1972, ＂gate＂ has evolved from a free morpheme into a productive suffix indicating scandals. Numerous scholars have studied this ＂-gate＂ phenomenon from various perspectives, but few have ever related it with grammaticalization. The paper probes into the grammaticalization of the ＂-gate＂ suffix and demonstrates that the suffix results from two sets of mechanisms at two different levels, i.e. reanalysis and analogy at the morphosyntactic level, conceptual metonymy and metaphor at the semantic, both driven by pragmatic motivations of informativeness, economy and expressivity.