西方汉学视域下汉语量词的性质与特征

On the Nature and Characteristics of Chinese Measure Words in Western Sinology

量范畴是世界各语言的普遍共有范畴,不同类型语言的量范畴表达也各有不同。站在类型学角度看,汉语的量词是一个比较杂糅的系统,既有度量衡的量词,还有动量词,大量的是名词专用量词。文章通过分析发现,西方的专业汉学家们对汉语量词性质的观察比较细致,在他们看来,汉语量词有的表量,有的表类,可分为量化量词与类化量词;类化量词是汉语中的特殊词类,也是汉语区别于其他语言的量词类型特征。这一特殊量词小类也正是对外汉语教学中需要关注的,也是量词学习的主要难点及其偏误所在。

Quantity is a universal category in world languages,and the quantity category is expressed differently by different types of languages.From a typological perspective,Chinese measure words are a hybrid system,including words of standard measurements,verbal measure words,and large numbers of specified measure words for nouns.This paper finds that Chinese measure words are meticulously observed in western sinology,which classifies Chinese measure words into quantifiers for quantity and classifiers for classification.Classifiers,as a special word class in Chinese and a characteristic of Chinese measure word system,pose difficulty in measure word study and need special attention in teaching Chinese as a foreign language.