“呢”的意义分析和历史演变

Analyses of 呢 in Terms of Meaning and Historical Evolution

对语气词“呢”的意义学者们基于不同的理论背景、从不同的角度进行过分析,但有的混同了“呢”的意义与“呢”的用法,有的未能充分注意历时的演变对共时系统中“呢”的意义的影响,因而所得出的结论难免存有偏颇与不足。现代汉语中表示疑问的“呢1”与表示非疑问的“呢2”有不同的来源。本文在对“呢”的语法化过程的历史考察以及现代汉语“呢”的主要用法的分析的基础上,对“呢”的意义进行了重新分析。现代汉语中语气词“呢”具有表示反诘语气、表示感叹语气、表示肯定的陈述语气、表示疑惑的语气以及表示停顿等多种用法,但其最基本的意义是表示疑问语气,其他用法是在此基础上,经过词义泛化、句法功能变化以及语音变化等语法化手段逐渐衍生形成的。

Scholars have made analyses of the meaning of 呢(Ne) , one of the Chinese words denoting the speaker's mood, against different theoretical backgrounds and from different perspectives. Some scholars have mixed up the meaning and usage of 呢, while others have not paid full attention to the influence of its diachronic development upon the meaning of 呢 in the synchronic system. Consequently, it is unavoidable that there exist one-sided or inadequate conclusions. In modern Chinese, 呢 , which denotes the interrogative mood, and 呢2 , which does not indicate the interrogative mood, have different sources. This article provides a new analysis of the meaning of 呢 on the basis of an investigation of its grammaticalization and of analysis of its main usage. 呢 in modern Chinese has various uses: it can be employed to convey the speaker's mood in the form of a rhetorical question, to express his exclamatory mood, and to indicate his mood in the form of an affirmative statement; it can also be used to express his doubtful mood and to indicate pauses, etc. However, its most primary meaning is its expression of the interrogative mood. Its other uses have been derived from various grammatical means, such as generalization of lexical meaning, evolution of syntactic functions and changes in phonetics, etc.