词汇-语法创新的语言模因论解读——以英语非作格动词“致使化”为例

A Linguistic Memetic Account of Lexico-Grammatical Innovations:A Case Study of the “Causativization” of English Unergative Verbs

词汇的使用有时会"创造性地"突破其惯有的语法属性限制,在新的句法环境中获得新用法。现有文献主要从纯句法理论视角对相关创新用法加以阐释,但对相关语言现象产生的外部动因、语言基础等问题没有甚至不必给予合适的解读。笔者拟以英语非作格动词"致使化"为例,引入语言模因论的全新视角,探讨上述相关问题,一方面可深化对该词汇-语法现象的认识,并为相关词汇-句法创新现象的类似探讨提供参考,另一方面可以补充、丰富不同理论或流派视角下有关词汇-句法问题方面的探讨。

The use of lexical items might ＂ creatively＂ be deployed in ways that go beyond the limits of their grammatical prop- erties and thus acquire certain new usages in the new syntactic environments. While existing literature addresses the innovative usages in purely syntactic terms, it has not provided, nor has it needed to offer, a proper account of such issues as their exter- nal causes and linguistic basis. In this regard, this study explores these issues by conducting a case study of the ＂causativiza- tion＂ of English unergative verbs from the perspective of linguistic memetics. It is hoped that the study will shed new light on the understanding of the innovative usages and provide reference for research on similar lexico-grammatical innovations on the one hand and complement and enrich existing literature conducted from other perspectives or paradigms on the other.