动词变韵与事件结构的语法化

Inflectional rhyme changeand the grammaticalization of event structure

河南方言广泛存在用系统的动词屈折来表示语法意义的现象,学界称为"动词变韵"。本文从事件结构和句法结构的互动入手,综合考察河南方言动词变韵的分布和功能,并检讨动词变韵的"完成体"说。本文认为,整个动词短语有界才是动词变韵的必要条件,而后加数量成分、处所词、动词重叠等则是使动词短语有界化的手段,因而动词变韵应该从事件结构本身的"有界/无界"来解释,而与语法意义的"体"无关。动词变韵形成的早期可能是动词与某后缀的合音,但有的已经高度结构化、不可逆化,共时层面表现为通过动词的形态变化与补足语之间互动来分化有界与无界的一种语法化手段。

In Henan dialects,systematic verb inflection,named as inflectional rhyme change,is widely applied for the indication of grammatical meanings.This article investigates the distribution and function of this phenomenon from the perspective of the interaction between event structure and syntactic structure,and examines the hypothesis that inflectional rhyme change can denote perfective aspect.It is proposed that inflectional rhyme change depends on the boundedness of the event rather than grammatical aspect.Besides,this inflectioral rhyme change may have derived from phonological merge but later evolved to distinguish between boundedness and unboundedness together with verb complements.