QUANTIFICATION AND QUALIFICATION: TWO COMPETING FUNCTIONS OF NUMERAL CLASSIFIERS IN THE LIGHT OF THE RADICAL SYSTEM OF THE CHINESE SCRIPT

从汉语的部首看汉语量词标量和分类两种功能的并存关系

魏婷兰(Thekla Wiebusch)

《Journal of Chinese Linguistics》 23卷2期 (1995/06) Pp. 1-41

摘要

Quantification and classification/qualification each have been called the main function of numeral classifiers in different scientific approaches. This study introduces new evidence for this debate by comparing the Chinese numeral classifiers with the radicals of the Chinese script showing that the quantifying function clearly determines the qualifying categories of the numeral classifiers. The two systems are both examples of prototypical classification developed in the course of Chinese history. Some of the differences found can be accounted for by different times of origin and the fact that radicals belong to the script while classifiers belong to the spoken language. But only the lack of a quantifying function in the radical system can explain, why some important categories of the classifier system such as ＂shape＂ and ＂part of object＂ are not employed in the radical system, while the criterion of ＂material＂ -not useful for individualization-is used in the radical system, but not in the classifier system.

並列摘要

汉语个体量词和汉字部首都具有分类（classification）的功能。本文首先对Tai（1992）及其他作者对汉语量词确定的语义范畴，如“种类”（type）、“材料”（material）等进行了详尽的描述。然后介绍了汉字部首系统，并将它与汉语个体量词，就它们形成发展过程中的规律及其适用范围等方面，作了结构性的比较。通过比较，找出了两者之间存在的相似之处（如在原形种类（prototype）上的相似）与不同之处（如量词除分类功能之外，还有表量功能，而汉字部首则没有这个功能），从而加深了我们对这二个分类系统的认识。