先秦書面語的小句合成體──與現代書面語的比較研究

The clause-complexes in Pre-Qin Chinese: A study in comparison with Modern Chinese

本文討論先秦書面語中的「小句合成體」，歸納「句法層級以上的信息合成式樣」，藉由先秦小句合成實例與現代書面作品中長句子的比較，觀察古今漢語信息組織方式的異同。我們關注一個未經正式討論的歷史語言現象，就是規約化信息結構的改變。囿於篇幅，本文聚焦在先秦和現代書面語的兩項差異上，一是複雜話題鏈的構成差異，二是事理關係的表達模式差異。本文同時也展示由先秦合成式樣詮釋先秦文本的正當性與可行性。

The aim of this paper is twofold: to probe the conventionalized information structures, i.e., the clause-complexes, in Pre-Qin Chinese documents and to observe the historical changes of certain clause-complexes from Pre-Qin to Modern Chinese via comparison. The paper discloses that, in addition to phonology, syntax and semantics, the discourse units of clause-complexes undergo changes through time, which is a linguistic fact that has never been formally discussed up to this day. Two of the most prominent changes, which concern the construction of the topic-comment chain and the expression of logical relations, are demonstrated in this paper. The demonstrated examples not only reveal historical differences, but also show that the contents of Pre-Qin documents may be misinterpreted due to the neglect of linguistic principles.