何为底层形式?

What is the Underlying Form?

底层形式是生成音系学的重要理论概念,也是其语法操作的重要环节。生成音系学的底层形式不是结构主义音位学的“音位”,国内很多学者常常把“音位”当成生成音系学的底层形式。不仅如此,还常常把国外一些学者所使用的汉语“底层元辅音”改成“音位”。本文将从结构主义音位学的“音位”谈起,具体阐释“音位”与“底层形式”的区别,指出“底层形式”并不是表层一定出现的形式。不充分赋值理论是对底层形式的特征赋值,不是确定底层形式的选择因素。把两种不充分赋值理论用作底层形式的选择上并不恰当。所以,我们在做生成音系学的分析时一定要注意不要把结构主义语言学的概念和做法纳入其中,应分开彼此,说清关系,搞清楚理论的来龙去脉。

The underlying form is an important theoretical concept in generative phonology,and also an important part of its grammatical operation.The underlying form of generative phonology is not the structuralist"phoneme";there is no"phoneme"or""morphophonemic level"in generative phonology,as Chomsky and Halle(1968:11)have clearly stated.Due to their misunderstanding,many Chinese scholars often take"phoneme"as the underlying form of generative linguistics.It should be known that the grammar architecture of structural linguistics before the 1950s is a discovery procedure,by which the collected data are processed through the three successive levels of phonemics,morphology and syntax,and finally the grammar of a particular language under discussion is constructed.The phonological analysis of structural linguistics is mainly to find out and set up the phonemic inventory by contrastive analysis of minimal pairs.Generative phonology since the 1950s,however,is a mapping or derivation mechanism from underlying representation(UR)to surface representation(PR).The UR is abstract and is posited in accordance with various phonological conditions and requirements,while the PR is concrete and is the actual phonetic realization.As an important concept of structural phonology,a phoneme is neither concrete nor abstract,which is simply an intermediate stage in the phonological mapping or derivation process.Thus,it is inappropriate to change the"underlying vowels or consonants"used in some of the PhD dissertations into the"phonemes"in Chinese language.The present paper will start with the definition of the structuralist"phoneme",then make the more detailed explanation of differences between the phoneme and the underlying form,pointing out that the underlying form is not a form that must appear on the surface and it may also be a totally hypothetical form.The underspecification theory,in fact,has nothing to do with the way of choosing the underlying forms,and the function of underspecification theory is to assign a certain number of feature values to the underlying forms,rather than to select the underlying forms.Thus,it is completely wrong to take two underspecification theories as a tool for choosing the underlying forms.Therefore,when we conduct phonological analysis within the generative framework,we must be careful not to mistakenly incorporate the abandoned concepts and practices of structuralist linguistics into it,but must keep in mind that A is A and B is B.Only in this way can satisfactory analysis and results be obtained.