一百多年前上海话的使役、被动标记

The Causative and Passive Markers in Shanghai Dialect Spoken more than 100 Years Ago

一百多年前西儒上海话文献中使役动词类型较丰富,但因语义或句法结构限制未演变为被动介词,仅给予动词'拨'经历了'给予义>致使义/容许义>非自愿容许义>被动义'的语义演变过程以及主语省略、受事话题化前移的句法操作,发展为被动介词。因此上海话被动标记词源的选择也说明,汉语南方方言被动标记更普遍选择给予动词源,而北方更常选择使役动词源,是因为使役动词词义在南北方言中的发展不平衡造成的。

According to data recorded by Western scholars, a rich array of causative verbs existed in the Shanghai dialect spoken more than 100 years ago; however, for reasons of semantic or syntactic constrains, these causative verbs did not develop to be passive prepositions. It is the "give" verb peh(拨) that has acquired the function of a passive preposition through the semantic changes of "give > causative/willing permissive > unwilling permissive > passive", as well as syntactic operations including subject ellipsis and patient topicalization. Such development of the passive marker in Shanghai dialect shows that while Chinese dialects in the north in general have a tendency to have causative verbs as the sources from which passive markers derive, dialects in the south tend to have derived their passive markers from "give" verbs. This paper argues that such a discrepancy could stem from the different paths of semantic changes the causative verbs took on respectively in the dialects of northern and southern China.