動詞語意與事件結構之互動：中文動詞「放」的語意研究

Abstract

本論文探究了中文動詞「放」的多義特性，認為欲理解其多義關係，必須理解其背後的事件本質，並對多義詞的延伸機制提出了新的洞見。本文提出「放」的多義延伸是建立在語意側重的機制之上（Langacker 1987，1990），是以一個完整的「致使移動事件鏈」做為語意背景（base），並對其中不同的語意部分進行側重（profile），進而產生了相異卻也相關的種種用法。 本文採用了「語料庫為本的框架-詞彙構式理論」，結合「框架語意學」（Fillmore 1982）與「詞彙構式語法」（Goldberg 1995, Boas 2003b），以動詞在語法中的參與角色與句式搭配，來發掘「放」的語法語意特性。首先，本文以「放」在語料庫中的表現出發，先詳細觀察了「放」的實際語法使用與搭配情形，再以此為基礎，清楚定義了「放」的語義核心本質：「放」表達了「使移出（釋放）」、「使移入（置放）」、「空間配置」等事件，這些事件皆是人類認知中最基本的空間關係，牽涉了施事者、客體、起點、終點、與路徑之間的互動狀況。 進一步的，本文試圖提出，這些不同的事件類型，其實可以看作是在相同的事件背景上的不同語意側重。透過事件結構的自然推論，從使移出（釋放）到使移入（置放）再到空間配置，「放」其語意本質正是一個完整的「致使移動」事件：施事者使客體離開起點，然後進入並最後停留於終點。這是一個完整的「事件鏈」（event chain）。而以這個完整的空間事件為基礎，「放」的不同語意，其實就是對此事件之內部成分的不同側重，並透過各種語法搭配展現出來。而透過這樣的機制，「放」的多義關係就能被清楚並且有原則的解釋。 綜言之，本文認為動詞語意之間的連結與延伸關係，往往建立於動詞所表示的事件本質之上。也因此，「語意側重」是除了傳統的「隱喻延伸」（metaphor and metonymy；Lakoff & Johnson 1980）和「原型理論」（Prototype；Rosch 1975，Lakoff 1987）之外，另外一種可能的多義延伸機制。

The present study investigates the polysemous nature of the high-frequency verb fàng放 in Mandarin Chinese, and provides an insight to the issue of polysemy: “Semantic base & profile” (Langacker 1987, 1990), an important cognitive mechanism, may be one of the sources of polysemy. It argues that the various uses of fàng are actually different profiles of the same semantic base, which is a complete caused-motion event. This thesis adopts a “corpus-based frame-related constructional approach,” which combines the framework of Frame Semantics (Fillmore 1982) and Lexical-Constructional Grammar (Goldberg 1995, Boas 2003b), to probe into the syntactic and semantic nature of fàng in terms of the semantic roles and the participant constructions of the verb. With a close corpus examination of the syntactic and collocation distribution, the semantic of fàng can be clearly defined: fàng essentially expresses the spatial-motional events of “release (caused to move away from a source),” “put (caused to move to an endpoint),” and “spatial configuration.” In these events, fàng specifies various spatial relations between the roles of Agent, Theme, Source and Endpoint, as well as Path. Moreover, this thesis argues that the events fàng denotes can be considered as profiling various sub-portions of a semantic base. From “release” to “put” to “spatial configuration,” these events may eventively infer one another; they actually form a complete caused-motion event chain: “away from a source” → “move toward a goal” → “end up at an endpoint.”; and with this caused-motion event as a base, the semantically and constructionally diverse uses of fàng can be viewed as various profiles of the base. In this way, the polysemous nature of fàng is principled presented and explained. In short, this thesis proposes that, senses and the polysemous nature of a verb may highly related to the eventive structure the verb predicates; and Semantic base & profile may be one of the sources of polysemy.