Chinese Disyllabic Descriptive Adjectives: Gradability and Reduplication

漢語雙音節狀態形容詞：程度與重疊

劉辰生(Chen-sheng Luther Liu)

《清華學報》 47卷2期 (2017/06) Pp. 325-359

https://doi.org/10.6503/THJCS.2017.47(2).05

摘要

As the state-denoting meaning of its first component gets more and more bleached, nowadays the disyllabic descriptive adjective has transmuted into a gradable adjective. However, the state-denoting meaning of the first component does not totally die out; the disyllabic descriptive adjective, therefore, can only occur with some specific type of degree modifiers. So, the conflict between the assumption made by previous studies like Zhu (1980) that adjectives able to undergo reduplication must be gradable and the observation made by them that disyllabic descriptive adjectives cannot occur with any degree adverb can be solved. For the disyllabic descriptive adjective, the reduplication morphology functions to revive the degree operator function of the first component and make it able to bind and saturate the degree argument of the second component. This distinguishes the disyllabic descriptive adjective from the disyllabic attributive adjective in the reduplication pattern.

關鍵字

covert degree marker ； disyllabic descriptive adjective ； explicit comparison ； gradable ； reduplication

並列摘要

伴隨著第一音節狀態語意的弱化，雙音節狀態形容詞已開始轉化為程度形容詞。由於第一音節的狀態語意尚未完全消失，所以雙音節狀態形容詞只能被特定類別的程度副詞修飾。雙音節狀態形容詞帶有程度性的論點解決了只有程度性形容詞才能重疊和雙音節狀態形容詞不受程度副詞修飾這兩種說法間的矛盾問題。對雙音節狀態形容詞而言，重疊構詞的作用在於恢復第一音節原有的程度運符功能，使之能約束並滿足第二音節所帶的程度論元。這樣的功能適切地為雙音節狀態形容詞和雙音節性質形容詞做出了區隔。

並列關鍵字

隱性程度標記 ； 雙音節狀態形容詞 ； 顯性比較 ； 程度性 ； 重疊

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