吴语路桥话动前无定受事的句法性质与形成动因

The Preverbal Indefinite Patient in Luqiao Wu Dialect:Its Syntactic Features and Formation Motivations

路桥话在语序类型上属于次话题显赫的SVO型语言,但同时也存在着不少无定受事只能前置于动词的情况。动前无定受事有两种类型:一是"名词+无定数量短语",二是"无定数量短语+名词"。在句法性质上,前者是互相没有语法关系的次话题和宾语在线性序列上的连用,后者是一个定中短语并且整体充当宾语。动前宾语的出现,是现实事件、动后有非受事成分和无定受事这三个条件共同作用的结果。尽管当前两个条件共现时,受事就必须前置于动词,但由于次话题的显赫性,凡是有定或类指的受事都可以直接进入动前的次话题位置。只有语义上与次话题不相容的无定受事需要前置时,才不得不在动词之前(同时也在次话题之后)增加一个宾语位置。因此,动前宾语在路桥话中的使用是十分受限的,不能以此来证明路桥话是SOV型语言。

This paper claims that the word order of Luqiao Wu dialect is SVO, though it shows subtopic-prominent properties. It is observed that in this dialect the patient occurs as the postverbal object, and verbs are not allowed to occur as the final elements of clauses. However, if the patient bears the semantic properties of subtopic （definite or kind- denoting）, it occurs in the syntactic position between the subject and the verb. In addition to the subtopic-prominent feature, （ir） realis and semantic proximity are the two major factors which can affect the position of the patient in Luqiao dialect. In the absence of other factors, the patient appears in the preverbal position in realis events, while it appears in the postverbal position in irrealis events. Semantic proximity requires both the patient and the non-patient elements to be adjacent to the verb. When the two co-occur, the patient appears in the preverbal position, while the non-patient elements appear in the postverbal position. When the patient needs to be placed in the preverbal position, the definite or kind- denoting patient may appear in the subtopic position. However, the indefinite patient is not compatible with the semantic properties of subtopic, and is thus not allowed to occur in this position. There are two categories of grammatical forms for the preverbal indefinite patient： （i） the indefinite patient occupies the preverbal object position, which is represented as ＂indefinite numeral classifier phrase ＋ noun＂, with the internal grammatical relationship of the modifier and the head noun; （ii） the indefinite patient is divided into two parts the kind-denoting bare noun occupying the subtopic position, and the indefinite numeral classifier phrase occupying the preverbal object position, which is represented as ＂noun ＋ indefinite numeral classifier phrase＂. The second form is also a cleft subtopic construction, in which both the subtopic and the object are preverbal. This paper claims that the preverbal object position is between the subtopic and the verb. The patient is rarely encoded as the preverbal object in Luqiao dialect. The SOV word order appears only when the patient is indefinite, the event is realis, and there is at least one non-patient element after the verb. This paper shows that Luqiao dialect is basically an SVO language, though there exists preverbal objects in it.