“或”和“或者”的语法化

The Grammaticalization of Huo(或) and Huozhe(或者)

无定代词"或"在不同的句法语义条件下会发生两种相对独立的语法化:一种成为表测度的语气副词,并进一步发展为假设连词;另一种则语法化为选择连词。"或者"的语法化路径与"或"大致相同,但在古汉语中,用作语气副词的"或者"很早就占优势地位,而"或"的意义长时间处于代词/副词、代词/连词两种理解均可的阶段。

Indefinite pronoun huo（或） goes through two independent grammaticalization processes under different syntactic and semantic conditions. One is from a pronoun to an adverb which expresses hypothesis and further a hypothetical conjunction, the other is to alternative conjunction. Huozhe（或者） undergoes the similar grammaticalization process, but huozhe（或者） is dominantly used as a hypothetical adverb in Classical Chinese while huo（或） is used as both pronoun and adverb/conjunction in a long period of time.