上海话内部体标记“脱”的句法语义

The Syntax and Semantics of the Inner Aspect Marker⁃T^(h)əʔ^(5)(脱)in Shanghainese

本文秉持新描写主义的精神(胡建华2018),采用Filip和Rothstein(2005)、Filip(2008)对事件终结性的最大化算子的分析框架,详尽描述上海话内部体标记“脱”的句法分布及其语义功能。我们指出,“脱”的允准条件是:其作用的事件本身必须蕴含有界的梯级。“脱”本质上是一个操作于事件集合的“最大化”算子(MAX),该集合必须依据某一排序标准形成偏序,“脱”的作用就是在集合中挑选出当前语境下唯一的最大化事件。这一分析可以解释:1)“脱”总是出现在表达有界事件的语境中;2)“脱”出现在渐进性客体谓词中时,客体总是得到量化或定指的渐进性客体解读;3)对事件集合的排序标准可以由句法成分、句法结构或者语境提供,因此“脱”的解读常常具有灵活性,这种灵活性来自于排序标准的不同。

This paper investigates the syntactic distribution of the aspectual marker⁃t^(h)əʔ^(5) in Shanghainese(a Wu dialect)and provides a unified semantic analysis in terms of telicity in the sense of Filip and Rothstein(2005)and Filip(2008).As a first approximation,we assume that⁃t^(h)əʔ^(5) functions as a telic marker that usually follows an activity verb or a change of state verb to describe a completed/culminated event,reminiscent of the verbal suffix⁃diao(掉)in Mandarin.Regarding its distribution,it is observed that it tends to follow verbs with a negative or non⁃positive connotation and the resulting predicate V⁃t^(h)əʔ^(5) thus often conveys a sense of loss or disappointment(Fan 1988;Tao 1995).However,some‘quirky'behaviors of⁃thəʔ31 pose challenges to these generalizations,as it may not only occur in neutral contexts(e.g.,zu11⁃t^(h)əʔ^(5)5ɕieʔ31‘sit for a while'),but also co⁃occur with the predicate expressing the meaning of creation(e.g.,ʦu33⁃thəʔ44 sE55ʦaʔ31 dE11 kɔ33‘finish making three cakes'),and the atelic predicate(e.g.,bɔ11 bu33 bɔ11⁃t^(h)əʔ^(5)5 ləʔ31‘finish running').In addition,it can also occur in differential comparative sentences(e.g.,kɔ55⁃thəʔ31 zəʔ11 koŋ11 fəŋ13‘taller by ten cm'),and most intriguingly,it may behave differently with respect to the same verb in different structures(e.g.,ʦhE34 lã11⁃thəʔ33 vs.th i51 lã11⁃∗(thəʔ33)‘the dish got cold'vs.‘the weather got cold').The seemingly heterogeneous behaviors thus need a more fine⁃grained description and a unified account.Following Li and Sun's(2021)analysis of the aspectual marker⁃ɦɔin Wenzhou Wu dialect,we propose that the telic marker⁃t^(h)əʔ^(5) in Shanghainese is an overt maximalization operator MAXE,which maps sets of events that are partially ordered by an ordering criterion onto sets of maximal events(Filip and Rothstein 2005;Filip 2008).The ordering criterion can be provided by lexical materials such as incremental themes,arguments expressing path,quantificational adverbs(e.g.,those denoting frequency and time span),and their interaction with context and world knowledge.Once the partial ordering is imposed,the set of events can thus be viewed as different stages(in the sense of Landman(1992)),from which the maximal event is picked up when the event culminates,or when no further development of the event is relevant in the given context.The maximality analysis has several advantages.First,on the assumption that MAXE requires an input denotation with a partial ordering,we correctly predict that⁃t^(h)əʔ^(5) is most canonically compatible with incremental events(Krifka 1989,1992,1998),which inherently encode an ordered scale and thus have internal distinguishable stages subject to maximalization.The much⁃discussed constraint on the referentiality of the object NP,whether bare or in the form of a numeral phrase,also falls naturally under this analysis.In addition,we can account for two other salient properties of⁃t^(h)əʔ^(5),namely,its incompatibility with stative verbs,which do not semantically encode any scale(Rothstein 2004),and progressive aspect(differing from Mandarin⁃diao),which zooms in on the process of an event,leaving out its boundaries(Smith 1991).Second,on the view that the ordering criterion can be provided by lexical materials other than an incremental theme and their interaction with context or world knowledge,several exceptional cases previously noticed but left unsolved can be accounted for,as shown below.In(1),⁃t^(h)əʔ^(5) applies to the set of events ordered by a temporal trace encoded by the time adverbial,and in(2),the implicit distance argument entailed by the caused motion verb serves as the ordering criterion,hence the grammaticality despite the lack of a canonical incremental theme.■More interestingly,as the maximality approach views the ordered events as“separate stages”àla Landman(1992),whereby the stages can be viewed as sharing the same essence,we have a way to tackle the thorniest problem raised by the‘to⁃do⁃list'reading induced by⁃t^(h)əʔ^(5) in an unbounded predicate,as shown in(3).■He finished the task of running(among other things in the to⁃do⁃list).'We argue that in order to project a scale along which an event can develop,the event denoted by the verb,which otherwise has no scale lexically associated with it,must be cast into a macro⁃event setting,where checking off one task can be viewed as development of the macro⁃event,leading to a to⁃do⁃list interpretation.To be specific,⁃t^(h)əʔ^(5) applies to the macro⁃event and picks up the running event as contextually maximal insofar as whether other tasks will be completed is irrelevant.In conclusion,the maximality approach provides a unified account for heterogeneous and peculiar behaviors of⁃t^(h)əʔ^(5),and might shed some new lights on the study of the aspectual system in Shanghainese and other Wu varieties.