基于事件过程结构的“了”语法意义新探

A Probe into the Grammatical Meaning of“Le(了)”Based on the Event Process Structure

事件是事物或实体随动词表示的动作或关系的变化而从一种状态变为另一状态,再从另一状态变为又一状态直至该事物或实体发生本质改变的过程。"了"的语法意义具有"完结""起始"两面性,可以标示事件随时间展开过程中的活动起始、活动终结和遗留状态起始三种事态,"完结""起始"本质上互为变体,受与之相关的动词性词语或整个句子在事件过程结构中所体现的过程特征的制约。句中"了"和句末"了"的语法意义具有同一性,传统观念中的"了_1""了_2"仅有区别句法分布的作用,不具区别语法意义的价值。

An event is a process in which a thing or an entity,by gradual changes through a series of states or relations conveyed by the related verb,changes its states from one into another, and then another until the thing or entity changes essentially.The grammatical meaning of 'le(了)'is either 'completion' or 'inception',and so it can mark up the inception or completion of an action,or the inception of the remaining state of an event processing temporally.The three state-marking functions of ' le(了)' may be regarded as its three variants of grammatical meaning.The duality of grammatical meaning of completion and inception of 'le(了)' is constrained by the process feature of the related verb,verbal phrase or the whole sentence.There is no difference between 'le_1(了)' which is in a sentence and 'le_2(了)' which is at the end of a sentence as far as the grammatical meaning is concerned.