试论汉语通指的表达方式

The Expressions of Generic in Chinese

通指可以从特征和数量两个角度定义。汉语的通指主要有五种表达方式 ,即光杆普通名词 /准光杆普通名词、“这 /那 +种 +名词”、回指用法的第三人称代词、“一 +量词 +名词”和全称性 /周遍性名词性成分。通指的理解跟语境、句子的时体以及名词性成分的句法位置甚至语体等多种因素有关。典型的通指成分接近定指 ,经常充当话题 ;非典型的通指成分接近不定指 ,话题性比较弱。

Generic can be defined from the angles of characteristics and quantity. Generic has five categories of expression in Chinese, i.e. bare nouns, quasi-bare nouns, 'this/that +kind of +noun', the anaphoric use of singular third person pronoun, ' yi +measure word+noun' and overall elements. The comprehension of generic is connected with various elements such as context, tense and aspect of a sentence and syntactic location of a nominal element. A typical generic is similar to a definite and is often used as a topic; a typical generic is close to an indefinite, and has no strong sense of topic.