WESTERNIZATION OF CHINESE GRAMMAR IN THE 20TH CENTURY: MYTH OR REALITY?

Researchers on grammatical change are more than often extremely suspicious of the phenomenon of borrowing, which they consider as an undesirably weak explanation. The main reasons against borrowing are that it is unfalsifiable and that the direction and extent of borrowing, if any, as well as the kinds of features affected, are determined more by social factors than by linguistic ones. However, since Wang Li's remark in the 1940s that ＂the europeanization of (Chinese) grammar has been an event of great consequence in the history of our language＂, many have tried to contribute arguments in favor of the thesis of a westernization of Chinese grammar. I will argue that these arguments, which often are repetitive, are far from being as convincing as one would like to suppose. The first part of this paper will show that the great majority of the examples put forward as evidence for a europeanization of Chinese grammar were actually in place before any contact between China and the West. In other words, regarding the problem of actuation (origin of the forms), it is suggested that any influence of Western languages on Chinese grammar has been quite limited. In the second part of this paper, however, it will be acknowledged that such an influence could have been important, at least in some registers of language (special kinds of shumianyu), for the implementation (spreading) of the so-called Western structures. The last part of the paper will discuss some universals regarding grammatical changes to borrowing in order to explain why Westernization of Chinese has necessarily been limited.

關鍵字

無資料

並列摘要

研究語法變化的學者通常對外借現象都持著非常懷疑的態度，他們認為外借是一個較弱的解釋。懷疑外借現象的主要原因是這個解釋無法被反證，而且外借的方向及程度，以至其它被牽涉的部分主要是受社會性因素的影響而少受真正語言學方面的影響。不過，王力在1940年代曾說漢語語法歐洲化在中國語言歷史中產生了重大影響，自此以後許多語言學家就對漢語西化這個問題作了許多研究。本文討論這些研究，並認為這些多所重複的研究論點實際上的說服力並不強。本文第一部分指出持漢語西化論的學者所舉之例大部分在中國與西方正面接觸之前已經存在。換言之，就形式始源問題而言，西化對漢語語法的影響是很有限的。本文第二部分則承認西化影響在其它方面的重要性可能頗大，至少在某些書面語方面，但只在擴大所謂西化語法結構流傳方面。本文最後部分討論有關語法變化外借理論的一些普通現象，以解釋為何漢語語法的西化必然是有限的。

並列關鍵字