汉语方言将来时表达的区域性探析

The areal diversity of future tense encoding in Chinese dialects

汉语方言将来时多采用句末助词来表达,根据能否单独表达等因素可以区分为可单用将来时和兼用将来时。在汉语方言的六大区域中,可单用将来时的形式与意义的语法化程度由西至东、由北至南逐步降低。北部和西北区域有的将来时接近一般将来时,而其他区域还停留在最近将来时阶段。这种趋势与北方非汉语具有形态化的时制对立不无关系。从完成体到将来时的路径广泛分布在各大区域,从进行体到将来时的路径在西北和北部区域有不同程度的分布。远南区域兼用将来时的语法化水平较低。区域类型学的视角可以丰富对汉语各区域将来时表达的多样性与一致性的认识。

In Chinese dialects, future tense is often marked by sentence-final particles, either independently or in combination with other markers. An areal tendency is observed among Chinese dialects of six major groups, i.e. markers for future tense flagging are decreasingly grammaticalized from the west to the east and from the north to the south. Besides, dialects of the northern and northwestern regions tend to have tense-like future encoding while it is closer to immediate future tense in the other regions. Such grammatical behaviors are related to the morphological contrast on the expression of tense between northern Chinese dialects and non-Chinese languages in the north. Moreover, the path of development from perfect marker to future marker has widely been observed in various areas, but the development from progressive marker to future marker is only attested to various extents in the northern and northwestern regions. In the far south, markers which express future tense in cooperation with other markers are even less grammaticalized. All these suggest that areal typology can enrich our understanding of the diversity and unity of future tense encoding devices in different Chinese dialects.