論虛詞反義同詞現象的形成──以「除」與「除非」為例探討

The Formation of Ambivalent Functional Words: Chu除and Chufei除非

同一個詞可表兩個相反概念，學界稱為反義同詞現象。一般而言，實詞係因詞義特殊性質或特殊引伸而有反義，然而虛詞意義相對空泛，為何也能發展出反義？此為本研究的核心關懷。本文特挑選「除」與「除非」來探討此議題，因二詞皆可表達排除與限定這兩個相對的概念。文中透過歷史觀察指出，二詞都是先有排除用法，再從之發展出限定用法，「除」這方面演變源於中古漢語時期漢譯佛經中兩種擴展構式，而「除非」這方面演變則始於唐宋時期的省縮構式，二者所增添或省縮的結構都含有對立或否定成分，此為二詞得以發展出反義概念的關鍵因素。文末亦將二詞的演變與「非」進行比較，以突顯二詞演變的特殊性，並解釋其反義同詞現象為何不會造成使用者混淆。

Words that can express two opposite meanings are referred to as ambivalent words by scholarship. Due to the special nature of word meaning or meaning extension, content (lexical) words may develop opposite concepts, but how can functional words also exhibit this phenomenon given that their meanings are abstract? In the present article, the historical evolution of chu除and chufei除非serves as a case study to investigate this phenomenon, as both can denote two contrastive meanings:“except”and“only,”with the latter developing from the former. The historical change of chu began with two expanded constructions in the Chinese translation of Buddhist scriptures during the period of Middle Chinese, whereas that of chufei started with the abbreviated construction during Tang and Song dynasties. Both the expanded and the abbreviated constructions are contrastive or negative clauses, which explains why the two words can have opposite meanings. This article then concludes by drawing a comparison of the historical evolution of the two words with that of fei非, expounding the particularities in their changes as well as why the opposite meanings of the two words do not cause confusion to the user.