语气、语式、态与宣意元素

Mood, mode, aspect and subjective elements

汉语界对语气的理解与外语界很不一样，外语界将之理解为mood，汉语界则将之理解为还包含情态和句子功能类别的“大语气”。汉语界对汉语有什么语气看法不一，对语气的分类也各式各样。本文借鉴清初学者魏维新的语言观，把话语中传达言者语言主观性的成分统称为“宣意元素”，把谓语传达的语言主观性称为“语气”（mood），将谓语传达语气的形式称为“语式”（mode）。笔者认为，语句的定式与否取决于其谓语是否有宣意元素；英汉否定句所否定的以及一般疑问句所疑问的都是谓语的宣意元素；英汉实际上都只有两个基本语式，即断言式和祈愿式。英语的断言式实现为过去和非过去这两个基础时，其否定词一般是not。汉语的断言式实现为已然和非已然这两个基础态，已然态的否定词是“没”，非已然态的否定词是“不”。英汉祈愿式的谓词都是其原形，英语祈使句的否定式是Don’t＋V，汉语祈使句的否定词是“别”。

The Chinese translation of the term mood is 语气 (yǔqì), but in Chinese linguistics yǔqì is used as an umbrella term for not only mood but also modality and sentence types. Opinions vary on what moods there are in Chinese and how they can be identified and classified. Drawing on the linguistic view expounded by Wei Weixin, an early Qing linguist, this paper terms the elements expressing the speaker's linguistic subjectivity subjective elements. The subjective element carried by the predicator is termed mood, and the form of the predicator conveying the mood, mode. The author argues that the finiteness of a clause is determined by whether its predicator carries any subjective element, that what gets negated in negative sentences and what gets questioned in general questions in both English and Chinese is the subjective element of the predicator; and that both English and Chinese have in effect two basic modes——the assertive and the jussive. While the English assertive is realized in two primary tenses-past and non-past, the Chinese assertive is realized in two primary aspects——perfective and non-perfective, with mei as the negator for the perfective and bu for the non-perfective. In both English and Chinese the jussive is realized in the base form of the verb, with Don't+V being the negative form of the English imperative and with bi being the negator of the Chinese imperative.