漢語並列複合標記的作用－－從唐宋時期的並列複合標記「了也」談起

On the Role of Coordinative Compounding in Chinese: A Case Study of the Grammatical Marker liao-ye and Other Related Coordinative Markers in Classical Chinese

並列複合是漢語衍生新詞的基本途徑之一，此外可能還有其他作用，例如在功能標記替換過程中，以新舊標記並列複合為過渡的冗贅形式，幫助識別新起形式。唐宋時期句末「了」替換「也」的過程中曾有「了也」，動後「了」替換動後「已」的過程中也有「已了」，都是並列複合構成的過渡形式。以並列複合手段標注語言演變的現象，過去還沒有被充分注意。本文重新討論過去學者認為難解的句末「了」和動後「了」源流問題，據此提出一個初步的假設：漢語語法標記發生演變時，可能會由並列複合來彰顯變動的現實，這是基於漢語特性發展出來的演變形式證據。

Coordinative compounding is well recognized as one of the major tools for coining new words in Chinese, but its role as evidence of grammatical change has long been ignored. In the Tang-Song era (AD 618-1279), a redundant form of coordinative compound 了也liao-ye comes into being in the process of the new marker 了liao replacing the old marker 也ye. Similarly, a redundant form 已了 yi-liao occurs in the process of 了liao replacing 已yi. These two liaos correspond to Mandarin Chinese sentence-final 了le and verb-suffix 了le respectively, the origin of which is a puzzle to many Chinese historical grammarians. The present study discusses the problematic issues of the history of different 了liao/les and suggests 了也 liao-ye and 已了yi-liao disclose where they are from. The disclosure is taken as support for a hypothesis that redundant coordinative markers are formal evidence of grammatical change in Chinese.