作格性与作格语言的“主语”问题

On ergativity and the “subject” of ergative languages

主语、宾语等受格语言的句法概念在作格语言中的确仍是解读作格语言的关键,而作格语言内部的形态和句法差异却决定了很难找到一个统一适用于受格语言和作格语言的"主语"概念。本文指出作格分裂的本质在于作格语言的受格化倾向,并以此为视角论证了作格性的连续体特征。作格性的强弱差异制约了作格语言的句法组织方式:作格性弱的作格语言在句法表现上倾向于与受格语言一致,而在作格性强的作格语言中,受事性成分取得了成为话题的优先权,通格成分与谓语的关系成为句子的主要语法关系,也因此更具有典型主语的形态和句法特征。汉语的主语在形态和句法上与作格语言的"主语"有诸多相似之处,研究希冀可为汉语主语问题的讨论提供一个新的观察视角。

The identification of such syntactic categories of accusative languages as subject and object in ergative languages is the key to the full understanding of the latter,whereas the attempts to identify a unified notion of"subject"applicable to both accusative and ergative languages are doomed to fail due to the morphological and syntactic diversity of ergative languages. This study proposes the accusativizing nature of split ergativity,and explicates the continuum of ergativity. Differences in the degree of ergativity determine the organization of grammatical relations of ergative languages: with weaker ergativity,the syntactic representations of ergative languages resemble those in accusative languages,while with stronger ergativity,there is the correspondence between the absolutive NP and the subject in accusative languages in a morphological and syntactic sense due to the fact that the patient gains its priority in topicalization and thus the relation between the absolutive NP and the predicate becomes the primary one in ergative languages. This study also demonstrates that there is morphological and syntactical resemblance between the subject in Chinese and the"subject"in ergative languages,and thus provides a new perspective in the description and explanation of subject in Chinese.