「過」之語法化研究──運動動詞的多義性與語意改變

A Case Study on the Grammaticalization of GUO in Mandarin Chinese－Polysemy of the Motion Verb with Respect to Semantic Changes

本文根據當代語料探究中文裡運動動詞「過」的語法化演變路徑。並顯示「過」這個中文詞素已歷經多種語意上的轉變：與空間表達相關的「過」最先透過自我移動隱喻和時間移動隱喻的運作映照至時間性的目標領域。而後隨著隱喻或轉喻所得到的語意延伸及語用上的語意擴充，原本意指「空間穿越」的「過」字於是取得以下的新意涵，「超越某種規範」、「過度地」、及「過錯」。進一步的語法化也導致「過」發展出諸如在讓步副詞「不過」和表經驗動貌標記的用法。在這些演化過程中，「過」已從一個基本的運動動詞變成為一個語意極度豐富的多義詞，並且給予中文此語言一套更豐富的概念用以表達多樣與路徑、方向、時間流動、規範和時間經驗有關的抽象功用。

This paper investigates the grammaticalization paths of the motion verb GUO in Mandarin Chinese based on synchronic corpus data. The Mandarin morpheme GUO is shown to have undergone numerous semantic shifts: the spatial GUO through the operation of The Moving Ego Metaphor and The Moving Time Metaphor is initially mapped onto the target domain of temporality. With metaphoric or metonymic extension and pragmatic enrichment, GUO, which originally means ‘physical passing through space,’ arrives at its new senses of ‘to go beyond a certain norm,’ ‘excessively,’ and ‘a mistake.’ Further separate developments have led to the use of GUO such as that found in the concessive adverb Bu-GUO, and to its use as an experiential aspect marker. In these evolutional processes, GUO has changed from a basic motion verb to a highly polysemous word, and provides the language with an enriched set of concepts that signify various abstract functions related to path, direction, time flow, norm, and temporal experience.