关于“了”研究的理论思考--兼论汉语语法研究理念的革新

Theoretical Considerations of the Particle le(了)

本文在梳理“了”研究源流的基础上,进一步深化“了”的“界变”理论,认为“了”所表达的界变是句子语义函数式中的常量,界变同语句中的动作/性状、情状、情态、语态、时态、述题等语义范畴相关,表达这些不同层次、不同范围的语义范畴广义的状态变化。同时,本文还指出形态型语言的语法时体理论的局限性,并回答对一个“了”论的质疑,认为只有确立语言认知类型学的理念,转换研究范式,才能摆脱印欧语眼光的影响,确立真正具有普遍语法意义的汉语“了”定位。

This paper develops“the boundary change theory”of le in modern Chinese on the basis of the overview and summary of previous research and draws the conclusion that the boundary change of le can be defined as a functional semantic expression.The boundary change is considered to be related to semantic categories in the broad sense such as action/property,situation type,modality,voice,tense,topic,and can show the change of state from those different semantic hierarchy and semantic scope.Furthermore,the paper points out the limit of tense-aspect theory in morphological grammar and responds to the doubt of one le theory.We believe that only by changing the research paradigm and establishing a theoretical structure of cognitive typology can we establish a theory of le which possesses a general grammatical significance and be able to disengage from the impact of tense-aspect theory in morphological grammar.Based on the concept of linguistic cognitive typology,this paper argues that the boundary change is also a semantic type easily perceived in linguistic cognition,and thus easily grammaticalized as a syntactic category.Therefore,by taking the boundary change as the axis,a comprehensive examination to the relationship between the front and back boundary change interfaces and their impacts may be an effective way for grasping the syntactic representations of Chinese situation types.Accordingly,based on the boundary change theory,we classify the boundary change types as follows.This classification,which takes the boundary change as the axis and compares the state of the interface before and after the boundary change at the same time,takes the combination of the interface and the boundary change as the object of observation.The classification,thus based on the combination of the interface and the boundary change,not only explains the co-occurrence of various types of boundary change with le in a simple and clear way,but also covers the types of boundary change by the semantic combinations of action and result complements,and tendency complements,which is simpler,more general,and more explanatory.Meanwhile,in order to prove the validity of the point of view above,this paper searches for the sentences with le in Mao Dun's short story Lin Jia Pu Zi(The Shop of the Lin Family),and obtains a total of 443 cases,and summarizes 11 kinds of sentences with le.We examine each of these sentence patterns through the lens of the boundary change theory,thereby substantiating the validity of this theory.