再说“会”

Hui Revisited

汉语中语法化的“会”分为两个义项,它们是历史上两个独立进行的语法化过程的产物,没有相互衍生的关系。“会1”是助动词,先是绝对将来时标记,表示自然趋向性;演化为相对将来时标记,表示惯常与条件意义;再演化为必然认识情态标记,表示说话者认识的确定性。“会1”的前两个功能在现代汉语中最常用,属于时态范畴;第三个功能主要用于否定、疑问等有标记的句式中,大多带有感叹色彩。“会2”则是由“领悟”动词演化成表示技能技艺的动词。与“能”比较,“会”有更大的客观性。

There are two sense groupings for grammaticalized hui in Mandarin Chinese.They are independent results from two separated historical processes of grammaticalization,not derived from one to the other.Hui1 was an auxiliary verb and an absolute future marker at first to indicate natural development.Then it evolved into a relative future marker to express meanings of habitus and conditions.At last it evolved into an epistemic modality marker to show the certainty of the speaker’s cognition.The first two functions of hui1 are most frequently used in Modern Chinese,and belong to the tense category.The third one is mainly used in negative,interrogative and other marked sentence patterns when most of the patterns have exclamatory colors.Hui2 is a verb expressing technical ability and evolved from another verb which means understanding.Hui when compared with neng,sounds more objective.