原生词理据和继生词理据

Motivatedness of Root and Derived Words

任意性与理据性的辩证关系贯穿包括原生词和继生词在内的古今语言研究。原生词理据不断湮没,终致难以考求,人们据此认为语言具有任意性。继生词的隐喻语义特别是内部形式的诞生,促使许多词语的理据被认知和考证,人们因而说语言也有可论证性。本研究则认为,具备内部形式的继生词在省力原理支配下,回缩为貌似原生词的意义支点词,理据再次被腐蚀;然而原生词到继生词再到貌似原生词的意义支点词的变化表明:词语通过无休止的往返性运动,不断从外界吸取负熵,语言遂成为任意性和理据性共同支配的自组织体,从而沿着健康有序的方向演化前进。这一结论完全契合于索绪尔百年前的断言:在同一种语言内部,整个演变运动的标志可能就是论证性到任意性和任意性到论证性的持续过渡。

The dialectic relation of arbitrariness and motivated- ness finds expression in and throughout language that includes root and derived words from its classical stage to the contempo- rary one. The motivations of root words tend to lose continually and so be hard to inquire; hence language is viewed as arbitrar- y. With the emergence of derived words＇ metaphorical meanings especially their internal forms, the motivations of many words are coguized and recorded; language is thus considered motiva- ted. This study, however, argues that driven by the principle of economy, the derived words with internal forms are in ann shortened into the root word-like forms, and their motivations are eroded resultantly; nonetheless, the change from root words to derived words and then to the abbreviated words again shows that through words＇ incessant moving back and forth and their absorbing negative entropy extra-linguistically, language not on- ly becomes a self-organization that is governed by both arbitrari- ness and motivatedness but also evolves and proceeds in a sound and systematic manner. This conclusion is fully consistent with the Saussurean statement made about a century ago： within a given language, all evolutionary movement may be characterized by continual passage from motivation to arbitrariness and vice versa.