试论汉语存在句的两种语义特征

Two Semantic Properties of the Existential Construction in Mandarin

现代汉语中以"有"开头的句子通常被看作存在句,但是学界对"有"的语义和语法性质却存在分歧。"有"要么被分析为无定标记要么被分析为存在算子,然而这两种分析都无法直接刻画"有"如何在其后的无定名词短语的确指性和语境之间建立起联系。对"有"在现代汉语中多种用法的综合考察,支持"有"始终是二元谓词的分析。在存在句中,"有"的第一个论元未获得直接表达,从而迫使听者一方必须从语境中确定其具体内容,进而导致"有"后的无定名词短语获得专指意义。更重要的是,二元谓词"有"表征一个事件,该事件存续的时间不得晚于后面的动词所表达的事件的存续时间。存在句的这个时间性质是决定具体的存在句用例是否可以接受的重要条件。

Sentences beginning with you in Mandarin is usually treated as instances of the existential construction. The sentence-initial you has long been a topic of dispute in terms of its grammatical status and semantic property. It is treated either as a grammatical marker of indefiniteness or as an existential operator in the literature. However,neither of the two analyses can explain how you can establish a semantic relationship between the specificity reading of a post-you indefinite noun phrase and its context. On the basis of an comprehensive observation of various uses of you in contemporary Chinese,I argue that the sentence-initial you is a two-place predicate; the semantic content of the first argument of you is not linguistically expressed within the boundary of a sentence,but requires to be obtainable contextually. Thus,the pragmatic function of the sentence-initial you,is explained semantically. This analysis is theoretically more economical and explanatorily more powerful than any previous analyses. Furthermore,the construction at issue has the semantic property that the event expressed by you temporarily precedes the event expressed by the post-you verb. The temporal semantics of the existential construction constitutes an essential condition on the acceptability of you-sentences.