說「因」緣－論因果標記「因」的演變

The Origin of Yīn 因: Its Development as a Causal Marker

林怡岑(Lin Yi-chen)

《漢學研究》 35卷4期 (2017/12) Pp. 37-76

摘要

古漢語裡，「因」除了原因，似乎還能表示結果，前人常把這兩種用法混同，但我們認為表示結果的「因」是關聯副詞，表示原因的「因」是原因介詞或原因連詞。關聯副詞「因」與關聯副詞「因而」皆由帶零形賓語的依憑動詞演變而成，其中「因而」又進一步演變為關聯連詞，嚴格來說它們應該都是關聯標記。原因介詞「因」來自帶顯性賓語的依憑動詞，並進一步演變為原因連詞，結果連詞「因此」也是由原因介詞「因」衍生而成，它們才是狹義的因果標記。「因」之所以能演變為原因介詞，是因為動詞語義的轉變；而「因」之所以能演變為關聯副詞「因」與「因而」，則與零形賓語的指稱作用有關。零形賓語除了體詞性成分之外，還能指稱謂詞性成分或句子，這樣的情況讓指稱作用減弱，並使「因」的動詞義淡化，從而凸顯出表示語句關聯的功能。

關鍵字

「因」 ； 「因而」 ； 「因此」 ； 因果標記 ； 關聯標記

並列摘要

In ancient Chinese, the character yīn 因 can not only express ＂cause＂ but can seemingly also express ＂result.＂ Past scholars have often confused the two usages, but we argue that yīn in the sense of ＂result＂ is a correlative adverb while yīn in the sense of ＂cause＂ is a causal preposition or causal conjunction. Correlative adverbs yīn and yīn’ér 因而 both derive from the verb yīn which means ＂depending on＂ with its object hidden. Of which, yīn’ér then further developed into a correlative conjunction But strictly speaking, yīn and yīn’ér are both correlative markers. Causal preposition yīn derives from the verbal use of yīn which also means ＂depending on＂ but with its object apparent. This further developed into a causal conjunction and subsequently the resulting conjunction yīncĭ 因此. These are causal markers in a narrow sense. What caused yīn to evolve into a causal preposition was the transformation of the verbal meaning. The depending subject is often also the cause facilitating the behavior or action, which allowed ＂depend＂ to transform into ＂because＂; and the reason that yīn could evolve into correlative adverbs yīn and yīn’ér relates to the referencing function of a zero object. Zero objects can refer not only to nominal word groups, but also to verbal word groups and clauses. Such conditions weakened the reference, and diluted the verbal characteristic yīn, thus highlighting the function of expressing the correlation of clauses. Although pronominal objects shì 是 and cǐ 此 which follow after verbal yīn can also refer to verbal word groups and clauses from the previous text, due to the pronominal object being a dominant marker that appears on the surface structure, the reference function was not easily weakened, and neither could the verbal characteristic of yīn be easily diluted. For this reason, the conjunction yīncĭ could not be developed until the appearance of yīn as a causal preposition in frequent combination with the demonstrative pronoun cǐ.

並列關鍵字

yīn 因 ； yīn’ér 因而 ； yīncĭ 因此 ； causal markers ； correlative markers

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