汉语韵律语法研究中的双音节和四音节

Quadrisyllabic and Disyllabic Constituents in Mandarin Prosodic Grammar

过去的汉语韵律语法研究,主要的关注点在单音节和双音节的分布对立上。实际上,汉语中双音节和四音节之间也常常会引起句法分布上的差异。本文首先指出,汉语中存在着一级比双音节更高的韵律单位,这种韵律单位通常由四音节组成。在接下来的讨论中,本文通过讨论词缀对词干音节数目的要求、特定格式对音节数目的要求、语序调整和音节数目的关联三个方面,证实汉语韵律语法中存在着双音节成分和四音节成分的对立。本文进一步讨论四音节成分在汉语韵律层级体系中的地位,说明在汉语韵律语法现象当中,常常展现音节计数的特点,从而无法直接套用音系短语和音系词等当代西方韵律音系学理论中的概念。

This paper mainly proposes that the Mandarin quadrisyllabic constituent is a very important prosodic unit which has clear effects on the syntactic and semantic levels. It proves that the Mandarin quadrisyllabic constituent has a very different syntactic distribution from that of the disyllabic constituent through a discussion on the following three aspects: the affix’s requirement on the syllable number of the stem, some specific constructions’ requirement on the syllable number, and the association between syllable number and word order variation. This paper believes that the concepts in prosodic phonology, such as phonological phrase and phonological word, do not apply to Mandarin,because Mandarin always presents the "syllable counting" nature at the phonology-syntax or phonology-semantics interface.