句首名词作主语还是话题?——来自SVO和TSV句子加工的证据

Subject or Topic: Evidence from Processing SVO and TSV Sentences

汉语的基本语序为主动宾(SVO),但其同时又属于“话题突出型”语言,各类话题句如“话题⁃主语⁃动词”(TSV)句等使用广泛。因此,句首的第一个名词短语是优先识解为句子主语还是话题,犹未可知。本研究尝试通过自控步速阅读实验和门控句子补全任务,探索汉语使用者在实时理解和产出过程中对句首名词的解读倾向,旨在为其句法身份提供语言心理证据。结果显示,被试在线理解TSV话题句时,对第二个名词的反应时间较常规SVO句慢,但动词位置并未表现出加工困难;被试补全句子时,在首词语境下产出更多SV型主谓句式,在双词语境下则产出更多的TSV话题句式。这些证据表明,汉语句首名词在加工伊始具有主语解读优势,但当随后的语境中出现语义、语用信息暗示,需要修正初始判断时,汉语母语者能够迅速将其调整为话题解读。

Chinese has the basic word order of subject⁃verb⁃object(SVO),but it is also known as a topic⁃prominent language,in which a variety of topic sentences,including the topic⁃subject⁃verb(TSV)structure,are widely used.Thus,an immediate question arises regarding whether Chinese readers,upon encountering a sentence⁃initial noun phrase(NP),would interpret the NP as a subject or as a topic?Using a self⁃paced reading experiment and a gated sentence⁃completion task,the present study aims to explore how the sentence⁃initial NP in SVO and TSV sentences are processed by native Chinese speakers.Results show that the agent nouns,but not the verbs,in the TSV sentences were read more slowly than those in their SVO counterparts.It is also found that participants produced more SVO sentences at the first gate(N…)but overwhelmingly more topic sentences at the second gate (NN…). These results indicate that Chinese native speakers tend tointerpret the sentence⁃initial noun as a subject, but as more words unfold down the parsing streamwith semantic or pragmatic information indicative of a necessity to revise the initial SV structure,they are able to quickly decide upon the correct TS analysis.