显赫语义和语义扩张——以吴语间接题元标记为例

Mighty Semantic Meanings and Their Expansions: A Case Study of Oblique Roles in Wu Dialects

本文通过“赢家算法”考察了吴语 34个方言点中受益、处置等 10类间接题元及其形式标记间的内在关联发现受益义和处置义都可能是具有隐性控制中心地位的核心语义基于“显赫范畴”理论本文认为瑞安方言中的显赫范畴标记“代”和“丐”经历了两种类型的语义演变:链条型演变和放射型扩张“代”的多功能语义是以受益义为中心经过链条型演变和放射型扩张共同作用的结果瑞安方言“代”的核心语义受益义经过放射型扩张产生了处置义处置义继续进行放射型扩张成为新的核心语义由此出现“处置义”和“受益义”的“双核显赫”现象由于处置义比受益义具有更高的可及性瑞安方言的“代”可命名为处置范畴。

This article is a case study of mighty category on oblique roles and their formal markers based on 34 Wu dialects.“Mighty category” is a key term of Linguistic Inventory Typology proposed by Liu (2012a, 2012b). According to Liu, a mighty category is highly grammaticalized, and it has strong power of expansion, so it is always equipped with multi-functions. In addition, a mighty device can be utilized for prototypical and non-prototypical functions. However, there are two problems that need to be solved: firstly, how to name such a multi-functional device;secondly, what is exactly the relation between the prototypical meaning and the core meaning of a multi-functional device. In terms of the winner algorithm proposed by Chen and Chen (2015), the article examines the correspondence between 10 types of oblique roles (direction, conjunctive, comitative, comparative, including both equal and unequal comparative marker, beneficiary, disposal, giving, causative, passive) and their formal markers in 34 Wu dialects. If some oblique roles (semantic nodes) in a particular dialect share the same form, they are connected by lines on the graph, and the correlation of different semantic nodes are represented by lines connecting them: the thicker the line, the closer the correlation. On the graph, if a semantic node is strongly correlated with more nodes than others, it is the implicit control center of all semantic nodes, and it is thus probably the core meaning of a multi-functional form. It is found that the beneficiary and disposal are the implicit cores of all the 10 semantic nodes in 34 Wu dialects. Dai and gai in the Rui an dialect are selected to present the process of how to establish the core among several meanings of a multi-functional form and how to name the form. The article proposes that dai and gai display two types of semantic evolution: chain-type evolution and radial expansion, and the multifunction of dai and gai is the joint result of these two types of semantic change. Here is the chain of evolution for dai . I. verb → beneficiary → direction → comitative → conjunctive II. verb → beneficiary → disposal → causative Through radial expansion, the beneficiary as the core meaning of dai develops into disposal use, which continually expands in a radial manner and becomes another new semantic core, and the dual-core mightiness of dai is thus established. Through translation between Mandarin and Rui an dialect, it is found that the disposal meaning of dai have higher psychological accessibility than the beneficiary meaning because native speakers who are not well-educated are likely to translate dai (Rui an) into the DISPOSAL marker ba (Mandarin), but not the beneficiary marker bang/ti (Mandarin) when expressing disposal/beneficiary. Such a mismatch in translation implies different degree of psychological accessibility and dai can thus be labeled as a disposal marker in the Rui an dialect.