Grammatical Constraints on Compound Abbreviation in Taiwan Mandarin

國語中複合詞縮減之文法限制

江文瑜(Wen-Yu Chiang)

《國立臺灣大學文史哲學報》 43期 (1995/12) Pp. 259-284

https://doi.org/10.6258/bcla.1995.43.08

摘要

語言本身對於已知的訊息，或預期可以是已知的訊息，會透過簡化的過程達到經濟的效果，這種簡化作用可能是語言普遍特質中的一種。在台灣的國語中，我們發現長的詞也可只留下一些主要的詞素，而縮減成較短的詞（趙元任，1968），例如環境保護變成環保。從理論的觀點來看，在縮減詞之時，如何選擇主要的詞素是非常值得探討的議題。為了探討為何一個詞素會比另一個詞素更容易被保留，本研究以實驗的方法，決定選擇詞素時主要是受何種限制影響。本研究提出兩種可能互相競爭的限制：構詞上的限制是詞的縮減保留雙音節詞的最左邊的詞素，也就是在〔〔1-2〕〔3-4〕〕的複合詞結構中保留詞素1或3 的「構調頭」（或「中心語」）（cf. 黃宣範，1988）；另一方面，語意的限制預測受試者會選擇的詞素意涵了另一個未被選擇的詞素之語意。實驗的結果顯示構詞上的限制為主要決定受試者選擇詞素的因素，除非是具有競爭性的第二類限制干擾了選擇而造成選擇從左詞素轉換到右詞素，如本研究中的語意意涵限制所示。

並列摘要

Abbreviation of forms which have already been understood, or which can be expected to be understood, is probably a language universal, owing to the economic motivation of linguistic formation. In Taiwan Mandarin, we find a phenomenon of word abbreviation that ”usually takes the form of a selection of a few key morphemes from a long string of morphemes” (Chao, 1968: 492), e.g., huanjing baohu → huanbao 'environmental protection'. Abbreviation is particularly interesting from the theoretical angle of how ”key morphemes” are selected. To investigate the issue of why one morpheme is favored over another in the abbreviation process in Taiwan Mandarin, an experiment was designed to determine the main constraint in selection of key morphemes. Two grammatical constraints, one morphological and one semantic, are proposed and shown to compete in constraining the selection of the morphemes. The morphological constraint states that the selected morpheme in Abbreviation is the leftmost element, that is, the morphological head 1 or 3 in a compound word of form〔〔1-2〕〔3-4〕〕(cf. Huang, 1988). On the other hand, the semantic entailment constraint states that in deciding which element should be taken, the subject selects the element which has the semantic meaning entailing those of the unselected morpheme. A general pattern has emerged in which the morphologica1 constraint dominates the subjects' choice of a morpheme for an abbreviated form unless competing secondary constraints, such as the semantic entailment constraint examined in this study, interfere and cause a shift in selection preference from the left to the right morpheme.