再说“差一点”

The adverb cha-yidian(差一点) revisited

学界常用"企望说""色彩说"来解释"差一点没VP"为冗余否定解"没VP"的条件,但有很多语料违背这两种规则。我们基于北京话的考察提出"预期说",指出"差一点没VP"的语义诠释取决于语境预期,即语境里说话双方就事件实现预先认定的概率状况或标准规范,该格式的真值语义须符合语境预期,所否定的是反预期事件,故其冗余否定解见于明显的"反预期VP"。"企望说""色彩说"之所以有相当的解释力,是因为无标记的常规预期多指积极性的状况,这造成反预期事件往往是人们不企望的消极性事件,于是"差一点没VP"的诠释看似受制于企望色彩。语料中该格式的真性否定例远少于冗余否定例,这犹如否定句远少于肯定句:前者是依赖先设的有标记格式,后者是自由表述信息的无标记格式。此外,"差一点VP"的语义倾向也是真值合预期、否定反预期事件,只是它对语境预期的强制性低于"差一点没VP"。

The adverb cha-yidian( 差一点,‘nearly but not') is a hot topic,mainly due to the fact that the "chayidian+ mei( 没)not+ VP " construction is ambiguous between the meaning "VP happened" and "VP did not happen". The "wish " explanation and the "evaluation " explanation have been put forward to explain this phenomenon,but they both fail to account for many instances of the cha-yidian construction. Based on the data from the Beijing Mandarin, this paper argues that the truth value of the "cha-yidian mei VP " construction essentially depends on the contextual expectation of the "VP"event,i.e. the high-probability situation regarding the realization of the event( i.e. the VP is likely or unlikely to realize) or the requirement for the event( i.e.the VP should be done or should not be done),which is the common-ground information of the discourse. Theconstruction always refers to a situation which meets its contextual expectation,and denies a counter-expectation event. Moreover, there are very few "cha-yidian mei VP " sentences with the true-negation meaning "VP happened" in the literature corpus. This should be attributed to the fact that the negative sentence is a marked expression as it requires an affirmative proposition presupposed in the discourse. Besides,the "cha-yidian VP"construction demonstrates the same tendency, that is, its truth value normally conforms to the contextual expectation of the "VP" event.