「弗」、「勿」拼合說新証

New Evidence for the Hypothesis of Fu, Wu as Fusion Words

過去有學者提出「弗」為「不之」的拼合而「勿」為「毋之」的拼合的說法，這個說法目前仍然有不少人持反對的態度。本文根據幾種互補分配的語法現象來補証「弗」、「勿」源自拼合。此外，我們認為有些拼合說的反証並不一定是反証，是有理由可以解消的，本文相關的說明大約如下：其一，先秦有一些看似違例的「弗」、「勿」句例，其實並非真正的違例；其二，「不」有時會用如「弗」，這不見得是「弗」為拼合字的反証，有相當大的部分可以用避諱及語言兩項因素來加以說明；其三，隨著歷史的推移，「弗」、「勿」的見頻和功能有所轉變，乃逐漸混同於「不」、「毋」，使得「弗」、「勿」原有的使用限制逐漸的消失。

It has been suggested in the literature that fu 弗 is a fusion word of the negator bu 不 and the pronoun zhi 之 and that wu 勿 a fusion word of the negator wu 毋 and the pronoun zhi 之 but there still are many scholars who oppose this hypothesis. In this paper, we give supplementary evidence for this hypothesis based on the phenomena of the complementary distribution of the fused and non-fused forms. In addition, we show that some of the counter evidence is not so convincing as it appears. Specifically, we show the following: First, some of the sentences containing fu 弗 and wu 勿 which have been considered counter evidence to this hypothesis are actually not counter examples! Secondly, though many examples of bu 不 are used as fu 弗 (which have been cited as counter evidence to this hypothesis), most of these examples can be explained in two ways: 1). Fu 弗 was rewritten as bu 不 to avoid violating a taboo in the Han dynasty; 2). Bu 不 might be the better choice between these two negators which modify transitive verbs in some circumstances in Old Chinese. Finally, in this paper we show that the frequencies and functions of fu 弗 and wu 勿 changed with the passage of time, so fu 弗 and wu 勿 were confused with bu 不 and wu 毋 and the original restriction on fu 弗 and wu 勿 gradually disappeared.