漢語「人家」的語意解釋

Abstract

這篇論文針對漢語人家的語意和句法現象提出一個語意分析，並解釋人家為何有多樣的語意以及特殊的句法分佈，另外也分析人家+名詞的結構。人家的語意可以是有定，指說話者、某個人(們)，或是無定，泛指說話者和聽話者以外的人。句法上，人家卻無法和句內名詞同指，也就是人家遵守約束原則C (Binding Principle C)。過去與人家相關的研究專注於人家的語意解釋以及語用功能，沒有提及人家的句法現象，除了劉(2000)從語用的觀點解釋人家的句法分佈。本文從人家有無定語意的現象為出發點，認為人家是無定代名詞 (indefinite pronoun)，綜觀人家的語意特徵，因此把人家分析為一個帶著自由變項 (variable) 的存在量化詞 (existential quantifier)，而且這個變項的值 (value)不能是聽話者。由於自由變項的存在，衍生了人家的其他語意。當自由變項經過變項指派 (variable assignment)後，由於變項指派由語境決定，人家的自由變項就得到值，得到的值就是人家所指語境中的特定對象。根據Heim(1982)提出論點，當自由變項沒有被約束時，此變項最後會被存在閉鎖(existential closure)，因此當人家的自由變項沒有沒有得到值時，此變項也就被存在閉鎖，不會指特定對象。由於人家是一個存在量化詞，所以人家不能和句內名詞同指，此論點建立在專有名詞也遵守約束原則C (Binding Principle C)，以及Barwise＆Cooper (1981) 對於廣義量詞的看法，他們認為專有名詞是量化詞。 本文探討人家+名詞的結構，認為此結構是非限定同位語結構 (non-restrictive apposition)。根據Kubo (2009)對英文限定同位名詞組和非限定同位名詞組的比較，人家+名詞的結構同時呈現非限定和限定同位語的特徵，然而本文認為人家+名詞的名詞是人家的非限定同位語，證據來自於人家不能被任何關係子句修飾。林和蔡(2014)認為中文似非限定關係子句是限定性，本文推論若人家不能被似非限定實則是限定性關係子句修飾，那麼人家後面的NP必然不是限定性；另外，人家+名詞結構具有非限定關係子句的特點：人家+名詞結構沒有暗示人家的指稱對象數量可能不只一個。Potts(2003)指出俗成隱涵(conventional implicature)成份的特徵，他認為補充語(supplment)包含同位名詞組。本文發現人家+名詞的結構亦呈現俗成隱涵成份的特徵，例如：人家+名詞的語意不能在語境中重覆出現，不能同時被句中否定詞否定，因此，本文採用Potts(2003)俗成隱涵理論(Conventional Implicature Theory)將人家+NP分析為非限制性結構，後接名詞的功用是對人家指稱對象補充說明，而非限制人家的指稱對象，所以人家+名詞的語意組合獨立於句子其他成份的語意組合。

This thesis aims to provide an analysis of Mandarin Chinese renjia based on its meanings and syntactic property. Furthermore, the thesis also looks into renjia-NP construction. Renjia has both a definite reading and an indefinite reading. It can refer to the speaker or a specific individual. Moreover, it can also refer to people other than the speaker and the addressee. In contrast with typical person pronouns, renjia is ambiguous in terms of the person and number feature. Syntactically, renjia cannot have a sentence-internal antecedent. We assume that renjia is subject to Binding Principle C. The previous studies about renjia mainly explore its meaning or its pragmatic functions, but none considers its syntactic restriciton except for Liu (2001) who accounts for the syntactic restriction from the aspect of pragmatics. In light of the semantic and syntactic properties of renjia, we propose that renjia is an indefinite pronoun whose meaning is an existential quantifier with a variable. The variable is valued by variable assignment, which is based on the discourse. When the variable is given a value, renjia refers to the speaker or a pecific individual but the value must not be the addressee. However, if the variable does not have a value, Existential Closure is applied to it according to Heim (1982)’s proposal that unbound variables will be existentially closed. As a result, renjia is interpreted as an indefinite reading. Renjia cannot take a sentence-internal antecedent because renjia is an existential quantifier. This proposal is based on the argument that all quantifiers are subject to Binding Principle C according to Barwise＆Cooper (1981)’s proposal that proper names are quantifiers and the fact that proper names are subject to Binding Principle C. Considering renjia-NP construction, we propose that it is a non-restrictive apposition although renjia-NP construction shows the properties of the English restrictive and non-restrictive noun phrases. The proposal is based on two points. First, like non-restrictive noun phrases, renjia-NP construction does not have the impication that the number of the referent is more than one. Second, renjia cannot be modified by Chinese non-restrictive clauses which is claimed by Lin & Tsai (2015) to be restricitive. Since renjia cannot be modified by restrictive clauses, the NP following renjia must be non-restrictive. Moreover, renjia-NP construction also has the sematic properties of conventional implicature (Potts 2003), which are observed in Engish non-restrictive noun phrases. For example, the content of the NP following renjia is antibackgrounding and undeniable. We apply Potts (2003)’s Conventional Implicature Theory to analyze the renjia-NP construction. In the study, the sematic composition of renjia-NP is independent of the one of the rest of the sentence.