先秦敘事語言與敘事文本詮釋

The Narrative Language and Narrative Texts of Pre-Qin Chinese

本文嘗試由語言證據解析先秦四種敘事文本，切入點是先秦兩種基本句式在文本中的分工：〔行為者一行為〕（行為句）主要用於建構故事的情節，〔話題一說明〕（主題句）用於呈示觀點。行為句主語經常被省略，這是保持情節連貫的重要手段。主題句大多出現在對話中，有時附加上句末語氣詞，表達不同的言說觀點。再就情節發展來說，「時間流動」是推進情節的主要手段，不過由「空間延展」或由「複雜因果」推進情節的作品也已經出現。本文作為初步嘗試，只能有限度地將先秦語言知識運用到文本詮釋上，其餘就留待後續研究。

This paper attempts to interpret four Pre-Qin narrative texts by means of linguistic evidence. In the first place, the two basic sentence types, i.e., [actor–action] (A-type) and [topic–comment] (T-type) function differently in the texts: whereas the A-type is used for establishing storylines, the T-type is used for expressing points of view. Major actors of the A-type are often omitted to exhibit coherence. Moreover, the T-type usually occurs in dialogs, ending with a marker of modality at times, to present the subjectivity of utterances. The progression of storylines relies primarily on ‘temporal flow’, and yet other means for progression, such as ‘extension of space’ and ‘complicated cause-effect relations’ also appear. As a first effort towards interpreting Pre-Qin narrative texts through linguistic analysis, this paper cannot but apply the Pre-Qin linguistic knowledge in a limited way. The remaining issues shall be dealt with in the future.