名词的“格外”功能——格形态的超范畴扩展

Functions of case morphology beyond case semantics:A case of trans-categorical expansion

本文以库藏类型学显赫范畴的观念讨论人类语言格形态的功能扩展问题,着重探讨格形态超出格范畴的以下功能:1)"近格附名功能",即通常依托名词、跟格范畴关系较近的功能,如指称、信息地位;2)"远格附动功能",即通常依托动词、跟格范畴距离较远的功能,主要有时体范畴;3)非范畴功能,即跟特定词项相关、比较离散的功能。涉及语言有拉丁语、日语、韩语、芬兰语、羌语、苏龙语、普米语和汉语西北方言等。格形态的跨语言功能表现再次展示了显赫范畴强大而多样化的扩张力以及背后"物尽其用"原则的作用。这类扩张经常基于格形态使用中的范畴限制,由此衍生出寄生范畴,并不基于直接的语义-认知关联;也有些则有基于转喻等语义-认知关联的引申机制。

Based on the concept of mighty category from Linguistic Inventory Typology, this paper investigates the functional expansions of morphological cases in human languages, focusing on the following functions: 1) Noun-related functions close to case meanings, which are normally represented in nominal elements such as referentiality, information status and animacy;2) Verbrelated functions outside of case meanings, which are normally carried in verbal elements such as tense, aspect, modality and evidentiality;3) Non-categorical functions, which are semantically discrete functions depending on different lexical items. The powerful and diverse expansion ability of mighty categories is demonstrated by the expansion of morphological cases across languages, as in Latin, Japanese, Korean, Finnish, Qiang, Sulong, Primi and northwest Chinese. Trans-categorical expansion of case morphology is often based on the distributional constraints of the markers, resulting in the so-called parasitic categories, and sometimes it may take place on the basis of semantic-cognitive mechanism such as metonymy. The Principle of Maximal Utility of Linguistic Inventory plays a key role in trans-catagorical expansion of mighty categories.