对(交互)主观化单向性假说的几点质疑

Counterarguments against the Hypothesis of Unidirectional(Inter) subjectification

E.C.Traugott的(交互)主观化单向性假说主张,语义变化涉及从客观义到主观义再到交互主观义的单向演进。尽管单向性假说在理论内部做到了自洽性,但却是以对主观化内涵的不断泛化为前提的。这使得其在语言事实面前出现了解释上的不一致。分析表明,话语标记的衍生构不成真正意义上的主观化,敬体标记发展至强制性的语法标记后难以再发生主观化。语义演化的终端并非交互主观化,而是意义的元语篇化。主观性不存在累加效应,却存在磨蚀—更新的循环效应,这使得非主观性>主观性(化)>交互主观性(化)的单向演进在实际上难以成立。

E. C. Traugott＇s hypothesis of unidirectional （inter）subjectification predicts that semantic change proceeds from objective to subjective and further to intersubjective meaning. Though the unidirectionality hypothesis manages to be self-fulfilling theory-internally, it comes at the cost of gradually loosening the import of subjectification, which makes it hard to achieve interpretational consistency in its account of linguistic facts. It is suggested in this paper that the semantic import of pragmatic markers is not necessarily correlated with an increase in subjectivity, hence failing to meet the criteria of subjectification; that the endpoint of semantic path is not intersubjectification, but rather metatextualization of meaning; and that there seems, in the long term, there is not so much cumulative effect as cyclical erosion-renewal effect in subjectivity. This makes the unidirectional progression from non-subjectivity to subjectivity （-fication） and further to intersubjectivity （-fieation） fail to hold in practice.