论汉语为何没有发展成主语突出型语言

“Why Chinese Has Failed to Develop Subject-prominent Typology” Revisited

受刘丹青文《汉语中的非话题主语》的启发,借鉴英语成为主语突出性语言的历史发展过程,指出汉语不像英语那样,通过历时发展出来的语法范畴如情态动词、体标记和转换被动句式(标记)等来固定主语的位置并使主语突出,汉语中的相关范畴在历时发展中与谓语部分关系密切,与主语疏离。在汉语中区分话题和主语还得依赖一些语用手段如焦点、无定性、重读和提顿词等。

Inspired with the paper ＂Non-topic Subjects in Chinese＂ by Liu Danqing and with the diachronic evolution into a subject-prominent typology in English, this paper points out that, unlike the diachronically-evolved modal verbs, aspectual markers HAVE and transformational passive construction in English, the corresponding grammatical categories failed to fix the clause-initial position of the subject in Chinese and thus failed to push Chinese into a subject-prominent language. These categories, in their evolution, have been in close affinity with predicates and have stayed distant from subjects. In Chinese, the distinction of topic and subject has to resort to such pragmatic devices as focus, indefiniteness, stress and pause-markers as illustrated by Liu Danqing.