THE STATUS OF MARKER GEI IN MANDARIN CHINESE

漢語中的語法標記辭“給”

徐丹(Xu Dan)

《Journal of Chinese Linguistics》 22卷2期 (1994/06) Pp. 363-394

摘要

In contemporary Mandarin Chinese, the morpheme gei which is a full verb meaning ＂give＂ may be used either as an agent marker or as an object marker. This phenomenon is rare in relation to other languages. However, we will see that the verbs meaning ＂give＂ turn often into an agent marker in other Chinese dialects and even in other languages. Special semantic reasons will be given to explain why gei is also an object marker in spoken Chinese in Beijing. The constraints on gei's use show us that gei is rather a mock marker vs. the real markers ba (the object marker) and bei (the agent marker) in Mandarin Chinese. Our study shows that in the gei+V+le construction, gei is a marker of neutral voice sentences; the occurrence of gei is only permitted when the verb is non-oriented. This is due to the neutralization of the agent/patient distinction in Mandarin Chinese.

並列摘要

在現代漢語裡，動辭“給”字，既可作“把”（標記受動者）講，也可作“被”（標記施動者）用。與其它語言相比，這一現象是罕見的。我們將看到，作為“給予”意義的動辭在其他方言乃至其它語言中，常能轉化為標記施動者的語法辭。本文解釋了為什麼北京話中的“給”可以作“把／被”講，通過對比“給”與“把／被”，我們認為“給”實際上是一個“傀儡”標記辭。本文提出，在“給＋V＋了”句式中，“給”表明這時的句子不強調施受關係，即當動辭施受方向不明時，才能用“給”。這一現象是由於漢語中施受關係中立化造成的。