现代汉语名词的“恒常性/瞬时性”之别及其语法效应——从“司机”与“乘客”说起

On the Difference Between Individual-level and Stage-level of Chinese Nominals and Its Grammatical Effects——A Case Study of Siji and Chengke

理论语言学界有“恒常性/瞬时性名词”这对概念,落实到指人施事名词,其词汇语义所涉的定义事件对于前者表示所指对象的职业、精于做的或习惯做的,但对于后者则是正在做的。现代汉语的“司机”“乘客”较典型地对应这两类名词,这可以通过添加处所状语测试和词义释义句的选择来界定。“恒常性/瞬时性”的对立会带来一系列语法后果,一方面表现在二者搭配项分布上的多种差异,另一方面表现在一些均可搭配的词项,组合后有语义解读上的区别,比如定中结构中受“老”修饰且“老”语义上指向名词的施成角色时,就有“时间长”与“频率高”的不同等等。这些差异均表明,讲汉语语法时给名词分出“恒常性/瞬时性名词”这一小类,是十分有用的。

The category of individual-level and stage-level has been generalized into the nominal domain by theoretical linguistics to draw the distinction between nominals whose denotations are occupation/expertise/habit-based and those situation-based.Siji and Chengke in Mandarin Chinese represent those two kinds respectively,which can be established by their compatibilities with certain locative adverbials and their paraphrasing modes.Several grammatical effects on collocation and interpretation regularities have been examined over Siji and Chengke.To account for the results,the word lao is used,for instance,as the meaning opposition between long duration and high frequency when modified.The significance of introducing this minor class is highlighted.