今日一词｜轻动词 Light Verb

“语言学心得”

第 177 篇

【今日一词】

每天一词，一步一个脚印

一同扎进语言的海洋

轻动词

Light Verb

一般认为，“轻动词”这一术语最早是Jespersen(1954)提出并使用的，叶氏的轻动词主要指英语中“have a talk”“take a break”中的“have”“take”这样的活用词；为了解决双宾语结构“John sent a letter to Mary”的生成问题，Larson（1988）提出了动词壳（VP-shell）理论，增加了句子的论元位置数量（图1）；在当代生成语法研究中，典型的轻动词用来指谓语语壳结构中居于主动词之上的功能中心语，一般沿用Chomsky（1995）的做法用小写字母v表示（图2）。在Huang（1997）的基础上，轻动词还可以做抽象的“事件述语”，用BE/HOLD（表静态）、DO（表活动）、BECOME（表变化）、CAUSE（表使役、致使）等表示。

图1  （引自Larson 1988）

图2  拉尔森式轻动词结构（引自司富珍 2018）

轻动词是一种介乎实词与虚词之间的句法范畴。它的语义是虚的，但有指派语义角色的能力，因此它投射出论元位置。它可以没有语音形式，或只有部分语音形式，因此必须与另外一个中心语做并合(incorporation)。并合是中心语与中心语的并入(merge)，它包含移位(movement)的观念，动作比并入复杂。轻动词跟一个中心语并合以后(v-V)，就成为一个语词。

————本文参考司富珍《轻动词结构的层级制图》、梅广《上古汉语语法纲要》、邓思颖《形式汉语句法学》

相关研究

It is shown that an action verb in Mandarin Chinese can freely take an agent, a locative or a causer as surface subject, and an instrument, a location, a time, or a reason as surface object. Scrutiny on the relevant facts reveal that the phrase structure in the Mandarin Chinese sentence is composed of eventuality predicates, syntactically as light verbs, which license arguments and introduce them in to the structure. In this sense, Mandarin Chinese can be said to be a "Davidsonian" language, since the composing elements in the syntactic structure correspond to eventuality predicates in the semantic representation. This work also discusses the Chinese dialects and the ancient Chinese. It is shown that the light verb syntax developed from Mandarin Chinese is highly explanatory for the linguistic facts in these different aspects of the Chinese languages. Two other languages, Japanese and English, are also included in the discussion. The relevant phenomena in these two languages indicate that parametrization on the lexicalization of a light verb structure in different languages is in order. This work argues that the construction of phrase structure and the licensing of arguments in a language are correlated with each other. In Mandarin Chinese, the whole light verb structure does not undergo lexicalization and is sent to syntax intact. Consequently, the phrase structure is strongly thematic and the arguments are licensed in syntax. In English, the whole light verb structure undergoes lexicalization and is sent to syntax as an individual lexical item. Thus the verb in English contains rich internal eventuality information and a full set of arguments, and the phrase structure is non-thematic. Japanese stand as a middle case between English and Mandarin Chinese. In Japanese, only part of the light verb structure is lexicalized, excluding the subject-selecting light verb. Hence the subject argument in Japanese is unselective, but the object argument is not.

关键词：轻动词句法、词汇句法、同动词、复合词、同源词

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