中文倚變句式的語意研究

Abstract

本計畫的主要目標在於替中文的『倚變句式』提供明確的語意解釋，討論『越』 字的語意為何及『倚變句式』的整體語意如何一步一步地合成起來。在這個研究計畫 裡，首先我們會先回顧和『倚變句式』相關的主要文獻，特別是蕭素英博士（2003） 有關中文『越…越…』的語意討論，及Sigrid Beck (1997)有關英文 「the Adj-er…the Adj-er…」的詳細語意分析。除了上面這個一般性目標外，這個研究計畫也會針對下面 幾個特殊議題進行研究。 第一、當『越』-述語的主語是光桿名詞組時，為什麼有些時候，比如說當述語表 恆常屬性時，我們是在比較不同個體對於此一恆常屬性的程度大小，而另外有些時候， 比如說當述語表示短暫狀態時，則是在比較相同個體對於此一狀態的程度大小呢？又 為什麼下面兩個觀察會成立呢？ （A）當倚變句式的主語是光桿名詞組，而述語表短暫狀態時，把主語分析成語意 類別e 的方式要優先於分析成語意類別<e,t>的方式。 （B）當倚變句式的主語是光桿名詞組，而述語表恆常屬性時，主語名詞組必須分 析成語意類別<e,t>。 第二、為什麼倚變句式的複雜名詞組版本的語意解釋會和非複雜名詞組的版本不同 呢？ 第三，為什麼英文的「The Adj-er…the Adj-er…」的語意解釋策略會和中文的倚變條 件句不同？中英文的倚變條件句是否可用單一理論來解釋呢？ 在這個研究計畫裡，我們會努力找出上面問題的答案。我們計畫提出一個新的分析 方式，將倚變句式分析成量化結構，並透過比較相同或不同個體對於某一屬性的程度大 小來詮釋所有相關倚變句式的語意。我們也計畫試圖證明，相同或不同個體對於某一屬 性的比較可能可以透過Barbara Partee 所主張的名詞組語意解釋的一般性處理策略、詞組 結構本身及語用因素來一起回答。至於中英文的差異，可能要從這兩種不同語言的比較 句語意去尋求答案。

The main goal of this project is to provide a formal semantics of comparative correlatives of the form 「yue…，(jiu ) yue… 」 , discussing how the semantics of the morpheme yue 『more』 looks like and how the meaning of the whole construction is computed step by step. In this project, I will first review the relevant literature, in particular Hsiao』s (2003) work on Chinese 「yue…，(jiu ) yue… 」 constructions and Beck』s (1997) work on English 「the Adj-er…the Adj-er...」 constructions and show that the former』s analysis of Chinese 「yue…，(jiu ) yue… 」 constructions is wrong and Beck』s semantics for English 「the Adj-er…the Adj-er...」 constructions is inapplicable to Chinese 「yue…，(jiu ) yue… 」 constructions. In addition to the above general goal, this project will pay specific attention to the following issues. First, when the subject NP of a yue-predicate is a bare noun, why is it that sometimes we are comparing different individuals with respect to the degrees of a given property (when the predicate is an individual-level one), but some other times we are comparing the same individual』s different degrees of a given property (when the predicate is a stage-level one)? And why do the following two generalizations hold? (A) When the subject NP is a bare noun and the predicate is a stage-level property, a treatment of the bare noun subject as a type e free variable is prior to analyzing them as a predicative expression of type <e,t>. (B) When the subject NP is a bare noun and the predicate is an individual-level property, the bare noun subject must be analyzed as a predicative expression of type <e,t>. Second, why is it that the complex NP version of the 「yue…，(jiu ) yue… 」 constructions receive an interpretation different from the standard version that does not involve a relative clause? Third, why is the strategy to interpret Chinese comparative correlatives different from the strategy to interpret English comparative conditionals? Is it possible to propose a unifying theory for both langues? To answer the above questions, this project aims to propose a new analysis which treats the comparative correlatives as involving a quantificational tripartite structure and derives all the meanings of the 「yue…，(jiu ) yue… 」 constructions through comparison of degrees related to different or the same individual. This project will also try to argue that the comparison of the same or different individuals』 degrees of a given property may be consequences of Partee』s suggested general processing strategy for noun phrases, the constituent structures as well as the pragmatics of the sentence. As for the different interpretational strategies for English comparative conditionals and Chinese comparative correlatives, this project will try to seek the answer from the semantics of comparison of the two languages in question.