英语“情态副词+DP”的合法性解析——兼谈其汉语对应表达

An Inquiry into the Well-formedness Conditions of English “EPI-MB+DP” Construction and its Chinese Equivalent

认识类情态副词作用于命题,表达对命题的主观确定程度。但英语中,这类副词却常与DP组合,作用于DP,而非命题。本研究探讨英语"情态副词+DP"结构的合法性条件。研究认为,在"情态副词+DP"的语义解释中,表层的DP实际关联一个命题,这是支撑"情态副词+DP"结构合法的深层语义条件;英语关系从句是"情态副词+DP"成立的句法前提,它在语言使用经济性原则和转喻机制的推动下在表层实现为DP;此外,从语义匹配角度而言,情态副词表达认知不确定性,与之组合的命题内容(表层为DP)也需要具有与之匹配的"不确定性",这是"情态副词+DP"合法的另一语义条件。在上述分析的基础上,研究还对比分析了相同的概念语义在汉语中的编码问题,审视了英汉语在句法—语义界面上不同的工作机制。研究发现,汉语不存在英语关系从句的这样的固定句法结构,故无法借助转喻机制使用DP代替命题表达的概念语义。

Epistemic modal adverbs normally function as propositional operators.However,it has been observed that such adverbs can apparently modify the subpropositional material DPs.This study inquires into the well-formedness conditions of English'epistemic modal adverb+DP'(EPI-MB+DP for short)construction.The article first demonstrates that modal adverbs modifying DPs only take scope over those DPs,then explains how a type<st,st>entry for modal adverbs allows them to compose with type<se>DP intensions.It finds that DP in the construction undergoes type shifting,i.e.changing from a phrase to a property-type expression before being modified by epistemic modal adverbs,with DP taking the same meaning as a proposition does.It also finds that the proposition can be realized as a relative clause,which underlies'EPI-MB+DP',where DP becomes a surface form through the mechanism of metonymy.In terms of semantic compatibility,since EPI-MB expresses uncertainty,it requires the DP(with its associated proposition)to match the uncertainty,which is another well-formedness condition for'EPI-MB+DP'construction.The paper also investigates the Chinese encoding of'EPI-MB+DP'construction,and finds that Chinese does not have the syntactic device of relatives to encode the semantic relation specified by English EPI-MB+DP,hence no syntactic mechanism for the Proposition-to-DP metonymy.As a result,such English DPs can only be realized as propositional clauses in Chinese.