存在巨链的梯级修辞功能

The Scalar Rhetoric of the Great Chain of Being

本文解答为何存在巨链能够加强语气这一问题。存在巨链既是世界各民族中最为广泛流行的关于事物存在秩序的观念之一,也是研究梯级修辞的丰富资源。本文先介绍Lovejoy(1964)对存在巨链观念史的研究,刑文(1997)对中国传统文化中的“五行巨链”的研究,Lakoff&Turner(1989)对存在巨链的隐喻功能的研究,然后用Shannon(1948)和McEliece(2002)的信息论将Fillmore, Kay&O’Connor(1988)和Israel(2011)提出的梯级修辞的量级模型提升为概率模型。存在物巨链与梯级修辞的交互作用体现为存在物的等级能激活事件概率,梯级中较小概率事件的信息蕴含较大概率事件的信息。讲话人使用扩域手段,借助他物的情况暗示人的情况,扩域增强了话语的信息度和语气。

This paper addresses the issue of how the great chain of being can be associated with emphatic propositions. The great chain of being is not only one of the most popular ideas about the hierarchy of beings among all nations in the world, but also a rich resource for the study of scalar rhetoric. This paper first introduces Lovejoy’s(1964) study on the history of the idea of the great chain of being, Xing’s(1997) study on the the great chain of five elements in the traditional Chinese culture, and Lakoff & Turner’s(1989) study on the metaphorical function of the great chain of being, and then proposes to upgrade the quantity model of scalar rhetoric proposed by Fillmore, Kay & O’Connor(1988) and Israel(2011) to a probability model in the information-theoretical framework(Shannon 1948, McEliece 2002). The interaction between the great chain of being and scalar rhetoric is reflected in that the rank of beings can trigger the event probability, and the information of less probable events entails the information of more probable events in the scale. The speaker indicates human beings’ situation in terms of that of other beings’ via domain extension, hence enhancing the informative value and strength of the proposition.