概念結構與漢語概念化

Conceptual Structure and Conceptualization in Chinese

概念結構與語法的對應關係是當代不同語法學派都需要認真面對的課題。本文探討人類語言概念結構的基本組成部分，並以漢語語法為例，提出語法會大量反映概念化，如同詞彙。本文並提出語法相對論：不同語言可以有相同概念化原則，也可以有不同概念化原則；相同的語法反映相同的概念化，不同的語法反映不同的概念化。本文認為語言的「創造性」大部分源於概念結構的衍生，只有小部分源於句法結構的衍生；而句法與詞彙一樣，都是個別語言概念化的呈現。本文因此提出非自主性語法的哲學基礎與研究策略，進一步探求語言的異同及語言天生的認知機制。

Conceptual structure has been the focus of research in recent years not only in cognitive grammars but also in autonomous syntactic theories concerned with mapping form to meaning. In this paper, we give a sketch of the universal basis of conceptual structure and propose a relativist view of conceptual structures underlying different languages. Spatial expressions in Chinese and English are used to explore this view. Spatial expressions in sign language are also considered to deepen our understanding of conceptual structure. We take issue with the theory of conceptual semantics advocated by Jackendoff for the past two decades. We present a view that “creativity” and “generativity” resides largely in conceptual component, and only derivatively in syntactic component. Thus, the process of “syntacticization” is essentially on a par with lexicalization. We argue that syntactic patterns reflect conceptualizations in different languages and cultures and genuine cases of syntax-semantics mismatch are greatly reduced and hence simpler syntax. We also show how pragmatic inferences can be used to simplify syntactic structure, using word order, argument selection, and contextual expressions in Mandarin Chinese as case studies. We thus propose a sketch to work out a non-autonomous theory of syntax with minimal requirement of tentative innate linguistic structure.