概念轉換與功能游移：論台閩語「一個」的多重功能

Conceptual Mapping and Functional Shift: The Case of Taiwanese Southern Min Cit-e

本文以概念結構與語言結構的密切關聯為基礎，探索台閩語「一個」的多重語意、句法及言談功能。文中指出，「一個」為台閩語中名詞的「抵輔類詞」，在「一個＋名詞」結構中出現頻率極高，具有標誌名詞的基本功能。而在言談互動中，說者為達成某些特殊的溝通目的，常藉助「一個」的名詞標誌功能，將之附加於非名詞之前，以賦予該語詞某些名詞屬性，也因此導致「一個」的多重語法化。而「一個」的多重功能游移，其驅動力來自認知與語用兩個層面。就認知層面而言，由於概念範疇之間並非壁壘分明，因此容許說者將名詞屬性轉移到非名詞的成員上。就語用層面而言，言談中的語境需求，常促使說者將非名詞標以名詞屬性，以傳達特殊的語用隱涵；而此種語用隱涵若因高頻率的使用而制約化，就會形成「一個」的延伸結構功能。台閩語「一個」多重功能的現象，正突顯出語言範疇間界線的模糊與變異性，以及語言結構與認知、語用之間的密切關聯。

This paper analyzes cit-e in various Taiwanese Southern Min constructions as extended from the numeral-classifier sequence cit8 e5 (一個) ‘one CL’. It is argued that cit8 e5, as the default classifier with a high frequency of occurrence in the cit-e + N construction, serves the core function of coding nounhood. This coding function is seen to extend onto non-members of N and assign certain N characteristics to the coded unit to fulfill the speaker’s communicative goal, resulting in the polygrammaticalization of cit-e. The multi-path functional shifts are found to be motivated on both cognitive and pragmatic grounds: Cognitively, the indiscrete nature of human categorization allows the possibility for mapping nominal features to non-nominal items; pragmatically, the speaker’s communicative intent motivates the coding of nounhood in non-canonical contexts, inviting various inferences in different contexts, which in turn are conventionalized with frequent use. The analysis highlights the dynamism and indeterminacy of linguistic categorization, as well as the intimate relation among cognitive structure, language structure, and language use.