殷墟卜辭語句的形式結構與資訊結構

Syntactic and Informational Levels of Language Reflected in Yin Oracle Bone Inscriptions

本文作者認為，殷墟卜辭所見語句屬於二種不同層次。其一、任何語句均有其「形式結構」可言，由主、謂、賓等語法成分所構成；其二、除此之外，一部分語句另有其「資訊結構」，包涵「已知」與「新述」等二部分。且後者屬於本句中前所未知的資訊，因此為全句焦點所在。殷墟卜辭之宗旨，「卜以決疑」。所以針對某一種情況，先卜問其吉與凶，然後進一步就人、時、地等一一提出新問題去卜問。至此，「何人」、「何時」、「何處」、「何事」等，即成為卜人所特別關心及強調事宜，亦即資訊結構之新述成分。具有資訊結構之「著重句」與無資訊結構可言之「平常句」，二者分屬不同句法，具備其各自獨有特點，而以語序為其中最顯著者；屬於資訊結構中新述部分之任何形式結構成分（除了謂語以外）皆必易其位。另外，平常句中謂語以外的各句子成分可省略，唯獨謂語則否；而著重句中，凡是屬於所已知者（包括形式結構之謂語在內）均可省略。分析殷墟卜辭之資訊結構，不但可有助於讀通全辭並瞭解其邏輯背景，而且在古代漢語歷時研究方面，亦具有重要價值。

The immediate purpose of the present article is to substantiate the view that sentences found in the Yin oracle bone inscriptions can be analyzed from two different perspectives. First, all of them have their formal structure according to which such parts as subject, predicate, object etc. are to be isolated; second, some of the sentences display a sort of informational structure including ''theme'' and ''core'' of a given piece of communication. Oracle bone inscriptions were essentially intended for inquiry on whether some supposed actions corresponded to the will of the Heaven. They were normally started with a question of general nature which afterwards was expressed in a more concrete way as regards persons, time, place etc. involved. To deal with the latter the priest had no other means except using questions with the core of communication emphasized; this is the reason why so many sentences with explicit informational structure can be found in these inscriptions. From grammatical point of view sentences with or without such a focus have some basic distinctions, word order and the rules of omission being the most obvious ones. To the present authors' mind, a profound investigation into informational structure of Yin oracle bone inscriptions not only is very useful for grasping their contents but is also of importance for studies of diachronic dimensions of ancient Chinese as a whole.