摘要
本文对香港中文大学赵璞嵩博士的新著《上古汉语韵素研究——以"吾""我"为例》做了评介,介绍了该专著的理论基础——音步转型理论及其基本内容和结构,讨论了该专著在音步转型理论实践上的贡献和在上古音研究领域的价值,如韵素音段和韵素音步的存在及其韵律语法功能;同时提出若干值得继续深入研究的问题,如音步转型理论给(汉藏语)历史语言学带来的启发、语言接触可能是音步转型的动因之一等。
This article reviews a new book The Study of Mora in Archaic Chinese: A Case Study of Wu and Wo by Dr. Zhao Pusong of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. We will introduce the theoretical basis – the theory of prosodic foot transformation, the contents and the structure of this book. This book by Dr. Zhao, with the application of the prosodic foot transformation theory, predicts that the two first person pronouns wo(我 I) and wu(吾 I) in Ancient Chinese have a complementary distribution. According to the fact that the distribution of wu is limited and the principle of the prosodic invisible condition, the author further deduces that: "wo is the standard form of the first person pronoun in Ancient Chinese, wu is a reduced form that appears under the requirements of a specific speech environment"(Zhao, 2018:102).In order to verify whether the prediction is consistent with the language facts, the book analyzs all the relevant linguistic materials collected from the corpus. Then it confirms the result by exploring and analyzing the distribution of wo and wu in the focus stress position. It explains the cause of the opposition between wu and wo in Ancient Chinese with the research of phonology of Ancient Chinese.The book’s contributions to the ancient Chinese phonology is also discussed. The book’s theoretical basis is the principle of prosodic foot transformation. It holds that the Chinese bi-syllabification is a product of the historical development. Before the Western Zhou Dynasty, Chinese was a mora-foot language. From the Spring and Autumn Period to the Eastern Han Dynasty, the typical foot type in Chinese has changed from moraic foot into the syllabic foot. The language type has changed from moraic sensitivity language into syllable sensitivity language, and the stress contradiction between the mora are no longer prominent in Chinese. After this change, Chinese foot is sensitive to the syllables, instead of the mora.The prosodic foot transformation theory is based on the analysis of prosodic elements. It is an important theory in the Ancient Chinese prosodic phonology study, a breakthrough of formal linguistics in Chinese historical research.Dr. Zhao Pusong’s research is the first study to use the foot transformation theory to study the Ancient Chinese phonology, so it has very important significance in the history of Chinese phonology and prosody grammar. As mentioned before, the book has made breakthroughs from the perspective of prosody, and it has also proved Feng Shengli’s(2013 b) main arguments. The book’s interpretation and demonstration of historical rhythm theory is clear and persuasive.In the end, we raise some problems for future study, which include the inspiration for(Sino-Tibetan) historical linguistics, and that language contact may be one of the motivations for the prosodic foot transformation. Deduced from Zhao’s statement, the first-person pronoun ?a in Tibetan may also be simplified by the earlier standard form *?al. And according to the history of Japanese, the motivation for Japanese to realize the transformation of prosodic foot is not endogenous, but foreign contact. Based on these two cases, we think that the prosodic foot transformation theory is related to some other linguistic theories, such as historical linguistics study, language contact and linguistic typology study. All these studies expand its theoretical significance and scope of application.
作者
陈鑫海
Chen Xinhai(Research Center of Linguistic Sciences,Tianjin University)
出处
《韵律语法研究》
2020年第2期201-212,共12页
Studies in Prosodic Grammar
关键词
韵素
音步
音系学
历史语言学
mora
foot
phonology
historical linguistics
作者简介
陈鑫海,天津大学语言科学研究中心,chenxinhai0625@163.com
