汉语表达致使运动事件的小句中受事NP的句法位置

Syntactic Positions of Patient NPs in Chinese Clauses Expressing Causative-motion Events

汉语表达致使运动事件的小句中,受事NP如较重,则倾向于显现在核心动词前,这与类型学研究对核心居前语言重成分移位方向的预测相反。从共时角度看,这是两个因素合力作用的结果:一方面,汉语是话题突出型语言,受事话题化结构凸显;另一方面,汉语为SVO语,但NP的定语都在核心前,这种不和谐语序导致复杂宾语构成的述宾结构和宾语重成分后置结构处理效率偏低。选择地位凸显且处理效率高的受事话题化结构是回避上述矛盾的主要策略之一。从历时角度看,为避免不和谐语序导致的言语处理效率缺陷,汉语受事话题化结构自上古以来频率不断提高。动结式发展对此趋势的形成起作用是较晚近的事。元代汉语和蒙古语的接触仅导致汉语北方方言中此趋势更明显。

In Modern Chinese clauses expressing causative-motion events, if the patient argument is a heavy NP, it is apt to appear before the V, which is not in accordance with the hypothesis proposed by typological studies about the moving direction of heavy NPs in SVO languages. Synchronic studies show this is motivated by two important structural features of Modern Chinese. The first one is that the patient topicalization construction is a construction of low markedness in Modern Chinese, given its topic-prominent status; the second one is that the unusual word order of Modern Chinese NPs makes patient topicalization more effective than heavy NP shift. From the diachronic perspective, the frequency of patient topicalization constructions kept raising from Archaic Chinese, with efficiency of speech processing being the most important motivation. The evolution of VR compounds affected this phenomenon only after the Yuan Dynasty; the contacts between Chinese and Mongolian in the Yuan Dynasty made the patient topicalization constructions more frequent in the northern dialects than in the southern dialects.