ON VERB CLASSIFICATION IN CHINESE

汉语动词的分类

曹逢甫(Feng-fu Tsao)

《Journal of Chinese Linguistics》 24卷1期 (1996/01) Pp. 138-191

摘要

Y. R. Chao (1968) classified Chinese verbs into two major classes according to their transitivity and then each is broken down into further classes in accordance with such criteria as action, quality or state and so forth. With the advent of the case and its application to the study of Chinese syntax, researchers such as Li(1971), Tang(1975), Teng(1975) have all attempted at verb classification, taking the deep case information into consideration. Li's study, which will be taken as representative here, reverts Chao's system by taking the distinction of action vs. state/quality as the most important criterion, to be followed by the distinction between 'transitive' and 'intransitive'. More recently, with more and more information available on verb subcategorization, both CKIP group of Academia Sinica (1988) and Her (1990) have made new attempts at verb classification, using such models as the case theory and Lexical Functional Grammar or some kinds of combination of the two. In this paper, we will examine all four classifications, i.e., Chao's, Li's, CKIP's and Her's, critically, pointing out their significant generalizations as well as inadequacies as we go along. In the end, on the basis of such criteria as the number of arguments, the type of arguments, theta roles, and special distributional restrictions, a classificatory system of 14 major classes will be proposed. The major features of each class will be explained with illustrative examples.

並列摘要

赵元任先生在他的文法裏先把汉语动词根据及物性分别两大类，然後根据动作和状态的区别再细分。随著格变语法的流行，好几位语法学家如李英哲（1971）、汤廷池（1975）、邓守信（1975），也先後分别把格变语法的理论应用到汉语动词分类上，就拿李（1971）来说，他的系统以动作与性质／状态的不同为主轴，其後才再分及物与不及物。晚近，由於汉语次类划分的资讯越来越充足，CKIP（中研院「词知识库小组」）（1988）以及何万顺（1990）使用格变语法架构和词彙功能语法都曾把汉语动词重新分类过。本文拟以下列四位：赵、李、CKIP和何为代表，仔细检视他们的优劣点，最后本研究决定用下列四种资讯：1、论元数；2、论元种类；3、论旨角色以及4、分佈上的特殊限制来把动词分成十四大类。