关于汉语词类问题的反思

A Rethinking of the Research of Chinese Word Class

研究实践表明,汉语词类划分存在词无定类或类无定职以及循环论证的问题。汉语词类问题源于西方语言学,印欧语言的词类是一种有形态制约的句法手段,汉语没有这样的形式手段。汉语词类是一种"赤裸裸"的意义类,由于词的意义与句法功能之间有比较稳定的关联,句法功能可以作为意义同类的验证手段。目前以句法功能为标准划分词类,是为了讲语法方便,这只是一个权宜方案。由于词类是词与句法结构的接口,汉语词类研究应该着力探寻词的意义与句法功能之间的关联,进而转向直接研究词与句法结构的接口问题。

The research of Chinese word class has such problems as there is no correspondence between words and word classes, there is no correspondence between word classes and syntactic functions, and word classes and syntactic functions explain each other. The problems of Chinese word class originated from western linguistics. The word class in Indo-European languages is a means of syntax based on morphological characters, but Chinese has no such means so that the so-called word class is just a meaning class. Because of a relatively stable relationship between word meaning and its syntactic function, syntactic function can be used as a validation means. The current standard on the basis of syntactic function, which is just a workaround, is for convenience to syntax analysis. Now that word class is the interface of a word and a syntactic structure, the research of Chinese word class should focus on exploring the relation between word meaning and its syntactic function, and then directly on researching the interface.