从类型学看现代汉语冠词的词类地位

Articles in Spoken Chinese Revisited:Typological Perspectives

现代汉语有无冠词,学界争议颇多。本文结合冠词的跨语言定义及其与指示词、量词的区分标准,讨论了现代汉语冠词立类的形式、语义和历时依据,认为弱读的“这”和“个”已不用作指示词和量词,而具备了相当的冠词特点,应予单独立类。冠词立类合乎汉语事实,并可避免一些不必要的分析混乱。文章也讨论了相关的“那”和“一”“一个”,认为它们尚未发展为冠词。

This paper(re)examines the articles in Spoken Chinese.In the light of cross-linguistic definition of article, it proposes that ge and zhe function as articles in Spoken Chinese in certain contexts.The articles have evolved via a mechanism of tonal change.In particular, ge and zhe no longer function as classifiers or demonstratives in the unstressed neutral tone, which differentiate the classifiers gè and zhè in that the latter ones keep the original high falling tone.It also discusses nà, yī, and yīgè, which are demonstrative, numeral, and classifier, respectively.This study fine-tunes some details in the typological profiles of articles and sheds lights on the classification of parts-of-speech in Mandarin Chinese.